canus

Forms

cānus (feminine cāna, neuter cānum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *kasnos (“grey”), inherited from Proto-Indo-European *ḱh₁s-no- (“grey”).^[2][1] Together with cascus (“old”) it points to a stem ⟨*kasno-⟩, and it is cognate with the word for the hare in other languages: Welsh ceinach (“hare”), Sanskrit शश (śaśá-, “hare”), Old Prussian sasins (“hare”), Old High German haso (“hare”) and Old English hara (“hare”), and with hasan (“grey, shining”) and hasu (“grey-brown”).^[2][3] Its Italic cognate is Paelignian casnar (“old man”).^[2][3] Following Lubotsky, de Vaan takes the ultimate root to be *ḱh₁-, found in other adjectives for “grey” too.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan gives Plautus as its first author,^[2] who has it of white-haired old men, as the old lover in the Casina called a “grey gnat”.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

It is first white or grey of hair, implying old age, experience or wisdom, as in Plautus.^[3] Things with a white covering are also cānus: the sea whitened with foam, as Ennius' “hoary seas”, water white with dust, mountains white with snow, as in Virgil, and trees with silvery leaves.^[3][5] By extension it means age-old, as Martial's “hoary rights”, and Ovid's “hoary old age”.^[3]

Church Latin glosses it “gray, hoary”.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of grey-haired old men.^[3][2][4]
• 204–169 BC – Ennius of the foam-whitened sea.^[3][4]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of snow-covered mountains.^[3][4]
• 40–102/103 AD – Martial of age-old rights.^[3][4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. White, whitened: (of the sea) foam-capped, (of mountains) snowy, (of plants) silvery.^[3][1]
2. White- or grey-haired, hoary, old, (of hair) white, grey.^[3][1][6]
3. Age-old, ancient.^[3]

Word family

• cānaster
• cānī
• cānitiēs
• cānitūdō
• cānūtus
• incānus
• praecānus
• sēmicānus
• cānitia
• cāneō

Related words

• cānēscō
• cascus
• albus
• English hare

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson