Etymologically

Etymology and origin of the Latin word caldaria

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
Historia Augusta
Ultimate origin
Latin calidus
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin caldaria
French chaudière
English chowder
From the same root
English cauldron ← caldaria

Forms

caldāria f (genitive caldāriae); first declension[1] Also calidāria; medieval caudāria, chaudāria, and the neuters caldārium and caldāre.[1][2][3][4]

Etymology

It is from Latin caldārius (“for warming”), the feminine used as a noun.[1][5][6] That adjective is from caldus, the shortened form of calidus (“warm, hot”).[5][3][1]

It lives on in Italian caldaia,[7][3] French chaudière and Spanish caldera.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The adjective was used of the hot room of a bath (cella caldāria) by Pliny the Younger;[5][3] as a noun, caldāria first appears in the lives of Alexander Severus and Elagabalus in the Historia Augusta, for the hot bath.[3][6]

Semantic evolution

In Late Latin it is both the hot bath or hot room of a bath, as in Marcellus' medical writings,[3][5] and a pot for boiling, as in the Vulgate and the herbal ascribed to Apuleius.[5][3][6] Medieval Latin kept the cooking pot or cauldron and added a salt-boiling pan,[2][8] the kettle used in the ordeal,[8][9] and, in England, the royal kitchen.[9] Bede tells of a goose that was to be put in the cauldron, cooked and eaten.[9]

Timeline

  • 390–406 AD – The Vulgate uses it of a cooking pot.[5][4]
  • first third of the 8th century – Bede uses it of a cauldron.[9][4]
  • 1157 – An English pipe roll pays for a cauldron with a tripod for the king.[9]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (Late Latin) The hot room of a bath; a hot bath.[3][6][1]
  2. (Late Latin) A kettle, cooking pot, cauldron.[5][10][1]
  3. (Medieval Latin) A salt-boiling pan.[2][8]
  4. (Medieval Latin) The kettle used in the ordeal.[8][9]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  7. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
  8. ^ a b c d Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  9. ^ a b c d e f 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
  10. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson

Descendants

Cite this entry

“Caldaria.” Etymologically, 23 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/la/caldaria. Accessed 23 Oct. 2026.

Last edited on . ·