carina

Forms

carīna f (genitive carīnae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

The origin is disputed.^[2] De Vaan sets up a root Proto-Italic *kar- or *ker- and compares Welsh ceri (“stone of a fruit”) and Ancient Greek κάρυον (káruon, “nut”).^[2][1][3] Since the ship's keel is the earlier and usual meaning, and “walnut shell” appears only from Pliny on, Walde–Hofmann took it as a sailors' borrowing from Ancient Greek καρύϊνος (karúïnos, “of nuts”), “like a nutshell”, Ernout–Meillet thought the order of attestation accidental, “nutshell” original and the word inherited.^[2] The TLL also mentions Keller's view that it was taken from Greek.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler give Plautus as its first author,^[2][5] who has it of a keel in the Miles Gloriosus.^[6] Ennius has a greased hull gliding over the grey sea.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It is the bottom of a ship, the keel or hull, and in poetry, from Virgil on, the ship itself, Ovid's tired carīna is a finished poem, imagined as a voyage.^[3][6] From Pliny the Elder on it is also half of a walnut shell.^[3][2] The plural Carīnae was a district of Rome at the foot of the Esquiline.^[3]

Church Latin glosses it “ship, keel”.^[7] Through Genoese ⟨carena⟩ and French ⟨carène⟩ it is behind English careen (1590s), to turn a ship on its side.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a keel.^[6][5]
• 204–169 BC – Ennius of a ship's hull.^[3][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of a ship.^[3][5]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder of half a walnut shell.^[3][5]
• 1590s – English careen.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. The keel or hull of a ship.^[3][1][6]
2. Half of a walnut shell.^[3][1]
3. (poetic) A ship, boat.^[3][1][7]
4. (plural) Carīnae, a district of Rome.^[3]

Related words

• Carīnae
• English careen

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com