ceroma

Pronunciation

• Classical: [keːˈroː.ma]^[1]
• Ecclesiastical: [t͡ʃeˈrɔː.ma]^[1]

Forms

cērōma n (genitive cērōmatis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek κήρωμα (kḗrōma, “wrestlers' ointment; wrestling ring”).^[2][3][1] The Greek noun is formed from κηρόω (kēróō, “to apply wax to”), from κηρός (kērós, “wax”),^[1] a word found from the Odyssey on.^[4] Köbler tentatively connects it with Proto-Indo-European *kār- (“wax”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL records it from Seneca the Younger on.^[6][5] In his letters it is the wax ointment with which wrestlers rubbed their bodies to make them slippery,^[7] and in On the Shortness of Life it is the wrestling place: “qui in ceromate … spectator puerorum rixantium sedet” (“who sits in the wrestling ground as a spectator of boys fighting”).^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Lewis and Short take the word as the ointment of oil and wax used by wrestlers, much in use under the emperors, and cite Pliny the Elder and Martial for it.^[3] The OLD instead takes the first sense as the layer of soft earth or mud that formed the floor of a wrestling ring, as in Pliny's mention of scrapings mixed with mud from it.^[2] By metonymy it named the wrestling place itself, in Seneca, Pliny, Arnobius and Jerome,^[7][3] and the wrestling or the wrestler, as in Martial's line on a wrestler of the Libyan palaestra.^[2][3][7]

Arnobius and the Historia Apollonii also have a feminine ceroma, -ae,^[7][6] and Pliny an ablative plural ceromatis of the second declension.^[2][7] In British medieval Latin it again meant an ointment containing wax, and figuratively a struggle, as in a verse on one who escaped “free of the wrestling of the flesh”.^[8]

Timeline

• 4 BC–AD 65 – Seneca uses it of the wrestlers' ointment and of the wrestling place.^[7][2][5]
• AD 23/24–79 – Pliny the Elder uses it of the floor or ointment of the wrestling ring and of the ring itself.^[2][3][5]
• AD 40–102/103 – Martial uses it of the ointment and of a wrestler.^[2][3][5]
• AD 297–310 – Arnobius has the feminine accusative plural ceromas.^[3][7][5]
• c. 383–419/420 AD – Jerome uses it of the wrestling place.^[7][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. An ointment of oil and wax with which wrestlers were rubbed.^[3][7][1]
2. The layer of soft earth or mud spread on the floor of a wrestling ring.^[2]
3. (by metonymy) A wrestling place, a palaestra.^[2][3][7]
4. (by metonymy) Wrestling; a wrestler.^[2][3][7]
5. (Medieval Latin, figurative) A struggle.^[8]

Word family

• cērōmaticus

Usage notes

In Pliny Valerianus, Lewis and Short think ceromata may stand for canceromata, a swelling or tumour;^[3] Georges lists that passage as a separate sense, “ulcer”.^[7]

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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ 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