Etymologically
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carnarium

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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]

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