bucina

Forms

būcina f (genitive būcinae); first declension^[1] An inscription of Augustus' time spells it buccina.^[2][3]

Etymology

The OLD takes it as probably ⟨*bou-canā⟩, from bōs (“ox, cow”) and canō (“to sing, play”), and Köbler and Wiktionary give the same parts.^[2][4][1] De Vaan traces bōs to Proto-Indo-European *gʷeh₃-u-s (“cow”), with an initial ⟨b-⟩ taken from Sabellic,^[5] and canō to Proto-Indo-European *kh₂n-e- (“to sing”).^[5] Lewis & Short compare Ancient Greek βυκάνη (bukánē).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Varro,^[5] who uses it of the shepherd's horn,^[6] and Cicero has the soldier woken by the trumpets in the speech for Murena.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

It was a curved horn or trumpet, as opposed to the usually straight tuba, first a shepherd's horn in Varro, Columella and Propertius.^[6][2] In the army it gave signals, as in Virgil's dread call to battle,^[2] and it marked the watches of the day and night, as Propertius' fourth trumpet announcing the dawn.^[2] It also meant a trumpet-shaped shell of the kind blown by Tritons.^[3] The TLL notes its Romance descendants, Italian buccina and Old French buisine.^[3] In Late and Medieval Latin it is any trumpet.^[1][7]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro, of the shepherd's horn.^[6][5][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of army trumpets.^[2][4]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil, of a signal for battle.^[2][4]
• 57/46–12 BC – Propertius, of the trumpet marking the watches.^[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A curved horn or trumpet; a shepherd's horn.^[2][6][1]
2. (military) A war trumpet; the trumpet that marks the watches.^[2][6][1]
3. A trumpet shell.^[3]
4. (Late and Medieval Latin) Any trumpet.^[1][7]

Word family

• būcinō
• būcinum
• būcinus

Related words

• bōs
• canō
• tuba

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson