callum

Forms

callum n (genitive callī); second declension^[1] A masculine callus, -ī is found in Naevius and Celsus, and the plural is always masculine, callī.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

The Indo-European origin is uncertain.^[2][1] De Vaan's reconstruction is inherited from Proto-Italic *kaln/so- (“hard”), originally an adjective “hard”, which would explain the shifting gender and the formation of calleō.^[2] This agrees with Proto-Celtic *kaletos (“hard”),^[2][1] the source of Old Irish calath (“hard”) and Welsh caled (“hard”).^[2][3] Hamp reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *kHl-no-,^[2] and Wiktionary and Köbler give a root *kal- (“hard”).^[1][5] Wiktionary also compares Old Church Slavonic калити (kaliti, “to harden, cool”).^[1] The OLD and the TLL further compare a Sanskrit word for a callus.^[3][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Naevius,^[2] and Plautus already uses it for the tough flesh of meat: quanta pernis pestis veniet, quanta callo calamitas, “what a plague will come on the hams, what a disaster on the tough meat”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The basic sense is a hard substance: the firm flesh of animals, fruit and fungi (Pliny the Elder praises a grape for it) and even a hard knot in wood.^[3] Lucretius uses it for thick skin or hide, saying that nearly all things are covered aut corio … aut conchis aut callo aut cortice, “with leather, shells, hide or bark”.^[3][4]

In medicine, from Celsus on, it is a callus or a hardened scar on the body.^[3] Figuratively, callum obducere meant to make someone insensitive: Cicero writes that daily habit has already drawn a callus over his stomach (consuetudo diurna callum iam obduxit stomacho meo).^[3] Wiktionary also gives the senses “hard crust of soil” and, figuratively, “hardness, insensibility, stupidity”.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 235–200 BC – Naevius uses the word.^[2][5]
• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it for the tough flesh of meat.^[3][5]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it for thick skin or hide.^[3][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it figuratively for insensitivity.^[3][5]
• 14–37 AD – Celsus uses the masculine callus for a callus.^[3][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hard substance: the firm flesh of animals, fruit or fungi.^[3]
2. Thick, tough skin, hide.^[3][4]
3. A callus, a hardening or hard scar on the body.^[3]
4. (figurative) Insensitivity, callousness, especially in callum obducere, to make insensitive.^[3][1]

Word family

• calleō
• callōsus

Related words

• callōsitās
• callidus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 j k l m n o p Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften