Etymologically
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bustum

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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
  • 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