catillus

Forms

catīllus m (genitive catīllī); second declension^[1] A neuter ⟨catillum⟩ is also found,^[2][3] with the plural ⟨catilla⟩ in Petronius, and glossaries have a feminine ⟨catilla⟩.^[4]

Etymology

It is from Latin catīnus (“bowl, dish”) + -lus, a diminutive.^[2][4][1] For the base, de Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *katīno-; it has been connected with Ancient Greek κοτύλη (kotúlē, “bowl, dish”), but the Greek word is no exact match, and since names of vessels are often borrowed he thinks it best to take it as a loanword too.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Cato,^[5] whose work on farming has an instruction to set something out cum catillo et lingula.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The TLL glosses it as a small catinus, a little dish.^[4] Lucilius, Horace and Columella use it, Horace of a dish worn by the hands of Evander, and Columella of a mixture put in a dish.^[6][4] Valerius Maximus tells of Manius Curius dining from a wooden dish,^[4][6] Petronius has liver served in dishes, and a scholiast on Juvenal explains it as an earthenware dish for salted food.^[4]

By likeness it was the name of the upper millstone: the jurist Paul says that the lower part of a mill is the meta and the upper the catillus.^[2][6][7]

It was borrowed as Proto-Germanic *katilaz (“kettle”), the source of German Kessel,^[8][1] and as Basque katilu.^[1]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato uses it in his work on farming.^[4][8]
• c. 180–102 BC – Lucilius uses it.^[6][8]
• 65–8 BC – Horace writes of a dish worn by Evander's hands.^[4][8]
• before 66 AD – Petronius has food served in dishes.^[4][8]
• 1st half of the 3rd century AD – Paul uses it of the upper millstone.^[2][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small bowl, dish or plate.^[2][6][7]
2. The upper millstone.^[2][6][7]

Related words

• catīnus

Usage notes

A separate proper name Cātillus (also Cātilus in Horace) is one of the mythical founders of Tibur, a son of Amphiaraus in Solinus, named in Virgil's Aeneid.^[2][6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d e f g Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ a b c Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
8. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de