carbaseus

Forms

carbaseus (feminine carbasea, neuter carbaseum); first/second-declension adjective^[1] Varro, quoted by Nonius, has carbasineus, and Pliny the Elder and Apuleius carbasinus.^[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin carbasus (“fine linen”) + -eus.^[3][1][4] The noun carbasus goes back to Ancient Greek κάρπασος (kárpasos, “cotton”),^[3][5][1] which Wiktionary traces through Biblical Hebrew כַּרְפַּס (karpás, “fabric of cotton”) to Sanskrit कर्पास (karpāsa, “cotton”), though it notes that Mediterranean and Anatolian sources have also been suggested.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Cicero,^[6] who in the Verrines describes tents spread with linen awnings: tabernācula carbaseīs intenta vēlīs.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

It means made of carbasus, fine linen.^[3][2] Virgil uses it of the rustling linen folds of a cloak,^[3][4] and the poems of the Tibullan collection and Statius have it too.^[3] In the Digest the jurist Marcian mentions dyed linen vēla, cloths or sails.^[4]

Venantius Fortunatus uses it of a linen covering.^[4]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of linen awnings over tents.^[3][6]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of the linen folds of a cloak.^[3][6]
• c. 45–96 AD – Statius uses it in the Thebaid.^[3][6]
• 536–c. 610 AD – Venantius Fortunatus uses it of a linen covering.^[4][6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Made of fine linen (of sails, awnings, garments).^[3][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
6. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de