canicae

Forms

canicae f pl (genitive canicārum); first declension^[1]

Etymology

The OLD derives it, with hesitation, as from Latin canis (“dog”) + -īcus, and the TLL also thinks it seems to come from the word for dog, comparing cantabrum, another name for bran.^[2][3] Paulus' epitome of Festus says the bran was named from the food of dogs.^[4][3]

Wiktionary instead derives it from Proto-Indo-European *kn̥h₂ónks, with the cognates English honey, Albanian qengjë (“beehive”), Ancient Greek κνῆκος (knêkos, “safflower”) and Middle Welsh canecon (“gold”).^[1] Pokorny and Köbler put it under Proto-Indo-European *kₑnəkó- (“gold; honey”), a word for a yellow colour.^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lucilius, in the 2nd century BC, names it beside porridge.^[3][6][7]

Semantic evolution

It is a rare word, found only in Lucilius, the epitome of Festus and the glossaries, which explain it as bran or refuse.^[3][8][9] Georges calls it an inferior kind of bran, and Gaffiot the bran of wheat.^[8][9]

Timeline

• c. 180–102 BC – Lucilius names it beside porridge.^[3][6]
• second half of the 2nd century AD – Festus, in Paulus' epitome, explains it as bran of spelt.^[4][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. Bran, a coarse kind of bran.^[2][8][9]

Related words

• canis
• cantabrum

Usage notes

In the line of Lucilius, Lucian Müller restored an archaic genitive singular canicai, while Lachmann read the accusative plural canicās.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
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 Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
9. ^ a b c Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.