carnarium

Forms

carnārium n (genitive carnāriī or carnārī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin carō² (“meat, flesh”) + -ārium, a noun for a place where something is kept.^[2][1] De Vaan reconstructs carō² as Proto-Italic *kerō(n) and Proto-Indo-European *k(e)rH-n- (“piece”), and compares Oscan carneis and Umbrian karu, used of a part of the assembly.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found first in Plautus,^[3][4] in the Captivi, of a place where meat is kept.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Latin it is a meat rack or larder, where meat was hung or smoked;^[2][1] Petronius uses it figuratively of a heap of corpses.^[5][1] In Medieval Latin it was a grave holding several bodies,^[6] and in Britain a shambles and a charnel house or the chapel that went with it, glossed in a 1460 document with English charnelhows.^[7] Niermeyer also gives the sense “game bag”,^[6] and it survives in Italian carnaio, “heap of bodies”;^[5] Italian carniere, “game bag”, came from it through Provençal.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of a meat store.^[5][3][4]
• before 66 AD – Petronius uses it of a heap of corpses.^[5][4]
• c. 1030–1045 – Radulfus Glaber uses it.^[4]
• 1296 – A chapel in a charnel house at Malmesbury.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A meat rack or larder; a smoke chamber for meat.^[2][1][5]
2. Figuratively, a heap of corpses.^[5][1]
3. (Medieval Latin) A common grave; a charnel house.^[6][7]
4. (Medieval Latin) A shambles (meat market).^[7]
5. (Medieval Latin) A game bag.^[6]

Related words

• carō²
• caruncula
• carnifex

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
7. ^ a b c d Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press