bustum

Pronunciation

• IPA (Classical): [ˈbuːs.tũː], [ˈbʊs.tũː]^[1]
• IPA (Ecclesiastical): [ˈbus.tum]^[1]

Forms

bū̆stum n (genitive bū̆stī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It was formed from the compounds of ūrō “to burn”, participle ustum, by a false division: ambūrō “to burn around” was analysed as ⟨am-būrō⟩ instead of ⟨amb-ūrō⟩, giving a participle ⟨am-bustum⟩ and a base bustum.^[2][3][4] The same false division gave combūrō “to burn up”.^[2][4] The original sense would have been “place where things are burned around”.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus.^[2] Köbler's first source is the Twelve Tables, about 450 BC.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

It meant the place where a body was burned and buried, a funeral pyre, the ashes of a cremated body, and then a grave mound or tomb, as Plautus' joke that a man lies not at the tomb of Achilles but on a couch.^[3][6] Cicero calls Piso the bustum reī pūblicae, the tomb of the republic, and in Statius it means a body awaiting burial.^[3]

In Medieval Latin it meant a funeral pyre, a barrow, a grave.^[7] Köbler traces Italian busto “bust”, from the portrait of the dead on the tomb, to it.^[5][1]

Timeline

• c. 450 BC – The Twelve Tables use it.^[5]
• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus speaks of the tomb of Achilles.^[3][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero calls Piso the tomb of the republic.^[3][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A funeral pyre; the ashes of a cremated body.^[3]
2. A grave mound, tomb.^[3]
3. A destroyer, ruin (of persons or places).^[3]
4. A body awaiting burial, a corpse.^[3]

Word family

• bustirapus
• bustualis
• bustuārius

Related words

• ūrō
• combūrō
• English bust

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press