caementum

Forms

caementum n (genitive caementī); second declension^[1] It is also spelled cēmentum.^[2][3] Ennius has a feminine caementa.^[4][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin caedō (“to cut, hew”) + -mentum.^[2][3][5] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *kaid(s)mento-, and traces caedō to Proto-Indo-European *keh₂id- (“to cut, hew”).^[6] Lewis & Short explain it as contracted from ⟨*caedimentum⟩,^[4] and Isidore derived it from cutting, because it rises from hewn stone.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Ennius,^[6] who has a feminine form caementa in a tragedy.^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

It is the small stones or rubble used to make a kind of concrete, mostly in the plural: Cato prescribes walls of lime and rubble, and Sisenna a town wall built low with rubble.^[2] As a collective singular it appears in Cicero's De divinatione and in Vitruvius, who says the rubble should be broken from flint.^[2] Lewis & Short describe it as rough stone as it comes from the quarry, or marble chips.^[4][1] In Church and Medieval Latin it is cement or mortar, and also lime.^[7][8] English cement comes from it through Old French, about 1300.^[9]

Timeline

• 204–169 BC – Ennius has the feminine caementa.^[4][6][5]
• 234–149 BC – Cato, of walls of lime and rubble.^[2][5]
• c. 84–c. 25 BC – Vitruvius, of rubble of flint.^[2][5]
• c. 1300 – cement appears in English, through Old French.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. (chiefly plural) Rough stone, rubble, used in walls and concrete; chips of marble.^[2][4][1]
2. (Ecclesiastical and Medieval Latin) Cement, mortar; lime.^[7][8][1]

Word family

• caementa
• caementārius
• caementīcius

Related words

• caedō
• English cement

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
9. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com