cenaculum

Forms

cēnāculum n (genitive cēnāculī); second declension^[1] Manuscripts often spell it caen-,^[2][3] and an inscription has cinacula.^[3]

Etymology

It is from Latin cēnō (“to dine”) + -culum.^[2][1][3] The verb is made from cēna (“dinner”),^[1][4] which de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *kert(e)snā- (“meal”) and Proto-Indo-European *kert-s-nh2- (“portion”);^[4] Paulus' abridgment of Festus has the older form cēsnās.^[4] Cognate with Oscan kersnu (“meal”) and Umbrian śesna (“meal”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it from Plautus and Ennius on.^[3] In Plautus' Amphitruo Jupiter jokes that he lives in the upper storey, in superiōre quī habitō cēnāculō, and Ennius speaks of the highest storeys of heaven.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Varro says that the place where people dined was called cēnāculum, as it still was at Lanuvium, in the rest of Latium, at Falerii and at Corduba, and that once they began to dine upstairs, the whole upper part of the house was called cēnācula.^[2][5] Hence it was an upper storey, garret or attic, often let as lodgings:^[2] Cicero describes Rome as raised up and hung in its upper storeys, Horace's poor man keeps changing garrets, Petronius has a man letting an upper flat from the first of July, and Suetonius has Augustus watch the circus games from his friends' upper rooms.^[2] Lewis and Short note that the upper rooms later housed the poorer classes.^[5]

The Vulgate used it for the upper room where the Last Supper was eaten.^[6] British medieval writers use it for an upper room, a dining room or refectory, and a dinner party.^[7] Through Old French cenacle it gave English cenacle, about 1400.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of an upper storey.^[2][8]
• 204–169 BC – Ennius uses it of the upper storeys of heaven.^[2][8]
• 116–27 BC – Varro explains it as the dining room.^[2][8]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of the upper storeys of Rome's buildings.^[2][8]
• c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius uses it of rooms from which the circus games were watched.^[2][8]
• c. 1400 – English cenacle comes from it through Old French.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. An upper storey, garret, attic, often let as lodgings.^[2][5]
2. (figurative) The upper regions (of heaven).^[2]
3. (archaic, dialectal) A dining room.^[2][1]
4. (Ecclesiastical Latin) The upper room of the Last Supper.^[6]
5. (Medieval Latin) A dining room, refectory; a dinner party.^[7]

Word family

• cēnāculārius
• cēnāculātus

Related words

• cēna
• cēnō
• English cenacle

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b 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
8. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de