cerva

Forms

cerva f (genitive cervae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin cervus (“deer, stag”) + -a, the feminine.^[2][1] De Vaan traces cervus to Proto-Italic *ker(a)wo- (“horned animal, stag”) and Proto-Indo-European *ḱer(h₂)-wo- (“having horns”), from the word for horn.^[3] Cognate with Welsh carw (“stag, deer”), Ancient Greek κεραός (keraós, “horned”) and Lithuanian kárvė (“cow”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and the TLL date it from Plautus.^[3][4][5] Köbler dates it from Terence, who mentions a deer in flight.^[5][4]

Semantic evolution

It is a hind or doe, though the sex is often not marked and in verse it is a deer in general, as in Catullus, Virgil, Horace and Ovid.^[2][6] Cicero writes that hinds purge themselves with a herb shortly before giving birth.^[4] Spanish cierva continues it.^[4] Church Latin glosses it doe, hind.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it.^[4][3][5]
• 190–159 BC – Terence of a deer in flight.^[4][6][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of hinds before giving birth.^[4][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of a deer.^[6][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hind, doe; in verse, a deer.^[2][6][1][7]

Related words

• cervus
• cervīnus

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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 d 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 e f g Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson