calcaneum

Forms

calcāneum n (genitive calcāneī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin calx¹ (“heel”) + -āneus, a rare later form beside the noun itself.^[1][2][3] The TLL compares calcar (“spur”), from the same noun.^[4] Gaffiot and Jeanneau connect it instead with the verb calcō (“to tread”).^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler and Gaffiot give Tertullian as its first author, in his treatise on the dress of women, where it means the human heel.^[7][5][8] A line of the Moretum in the Virgilian appendix also has it, but Georges thinks the whole verse is probably spurious.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

It belongs to the language of the Christian writers and the Bible.^[3][4] The Itala has it in Genesis 3:15, where the serpent will lie in wait for his heel, and of the hoof of an animal in Genesis 49:17;^[8] Ambrose uses it of animals too.^[8] The Historia Augusta speaks of the heels of camels.^[2][5] A masculine calcāneus appears in Ambrose and in Isidore of Seville.^[2][3]

Medieval writers kept the heel and took it into medicine and anatomy, for the heel bone.^[9][10] From the biblical phrases came figurative uses: to lie in wait for someone's heel meant treachery,^[9][11] and to raise the heel against someone, after John 13:18, meant to rebel.^[11][12] Du Cange quotes the phrase from a papal letter of 1158 and a charter of 1281.^[12] The MLW also records it for a spur and for a footprint.^[9]

It lives on in Romance: Italian calcagno and Old French chauchain come from it,^[4][8] and Wiktionary lists Sardinian calcanzu and Aromanian cãlcãnju.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian uses it of the human heel.^[7][5]
• after 220 AD – The Itala has it in Genesis 3:15.^[8][7]
• c. 340–397 AD – Ambrose uses the masculine calcāneus.^[2][7]
• 4th/5th century AD – The Historia Augusta speaks of camels' heels.^[2][7]
• 1158 – A papal letter uses calcāneum ērigere for rebellion.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. (Late Latin) The heel (of a person).^[2][3][13]
2. (Late Latin) The heel or hoof of an animal.^[5][8][10]
3. (Medieval Latin) The heel bone, calcaneus.^[9]
4. (Medieval Latin, figurative) Treachery, a trap (after Genesis 3:15); calcāneum ērigere or ēlevāre, to rebel.^[9][11][12]
5. (Medieval Latin) A spur; a footprint.^[9]

Related words

• calx¹
• calcar
• calcō

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d e Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
6. ^ Jeanneau, Gérard; Woitrain, Jean-Paul; Hassid, Jean-Claude (2017), Dictionnaire latin-français, online ed., prima-elementa.fr
7. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
8. ^ a b c d e f Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b c d e f Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
10. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
11. ^ a b c Lexicon mediae et infimae Latinitatis Polonorum (1953–), Kraków: Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN; electronic ed. elexicon.scriptores.pl
12. ^ a b c d du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre
13. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson