capparis

Forms

capparis f (genitive capparis); third declension^[1] An indeclinable neuter cappari also occurs, and the accusative is capparim or capparin.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek κάππαρις (kápparis, “caper plant”).^[2][1][3] Beekes takes the Greek word for a loanword from the East and reports a comparison with the Modern Persian word for the caper;^[4] Köbler calls its further origin unknown.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Plautus' Curculio, where someone offers olives and capers: uoltisne olivas, pulpamentum, capparim? (“would you like olives, a relish, capers?”).^[2][3] There it means the caper as food, the fruit of the plant.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Latin it named both the caper plant and its edible fruit;^[2] Columella and Pliny the Elder treat the shrub,^[3][6] and Celsus prescribes its bark in medicine.^[3] It was still current in Late Latin medical writers such as Theodorus Priscianus,^[6] and glosses also have a form capparus.^[6] In Church Latin it is the caper tree.^[7] Through Latin it reached English as caper, the plant and its buds.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus mentions capers among things to eat.^[2][5]
• 14–37 AD – Celsus prescribes capers and the bark of the plant.^[2][3][5]
• 1st century AD – Columella writes about growing the caper bush.^[3][5]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder describes it as a shrub of firm wood whose seed was a common food.^[6][5]
• late 14th century – English borrows it as caper.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. The caper plant, Capparis spinosa.^[2][3]
2. The fruit or bud of this plant, eaten as a relish.^[2]

Related words

• English caper

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com