cadus

Forms

cadus m (genitive cadī); second declension^[1] The genitive plural is often cadum, as in Lucilius.^[2][3] Inscriptions and glosses have a neuter cadum, plural cada.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek κάδος (kádos, “jar”).^[4][1][2][5] Köbler compares a Hebrew word for a bucket.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Plautus.^[5] In the OLD's earliest quotation Plautus puts Stichus in charge of the wine jar.^[4]

Semantic evolution

It is a large jar for wine, mostly of earthenware, and Lucilius has a thousand jars of wine.^[4][3][2] It is also a jar for other uses, for storing food or for dye, and a funerary urn: Virgil has bones gathered and covered in a bronze jar.^[4] Wiktionary notes it as a liquid measure of three urns.^[1] Niermeyer records the medieval sense cask.^[6] Church Latin glosses it jug, large vessel, cask, barrel.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a wine jar.^[4][5]
• c. 180–102 BC – Lucilius of a thousand jars of wine.^[2][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of a bronze funerary urn.^[4][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large jar for wine.^[4][3][1][7]
2. A jar for food or dye; a funerary urn.^[4][3]
3. A liquid measure of three urns.^[1]
4. (Medieval Latin) A cask.^[6][7]

Word family

• cadialis

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
7. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson