chorea

Forms

chorēa f (genitive chorēae); first declension^[1] Varro has a Greek accusative chorēan;^[2][3] Virgil, Tibullus and Propertius scan the e short.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek χορεία (khoreía, “round dance”).^[2][3][1][4] The Greek word is from χορός (khorós, “dance, chorus”), which Köbler traces to Pokorny's root ⟨*ǵʰer-⟩ “to grasp”.^[1][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Varro,^[4] whose Menippean Satires use it of the dance of the stars across the sky.^[2] Lucretius has the singular.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It is a dance in a ring, a round dance, most often in the plural, in Tibullus, Propertius, Virgil and Horace.^[3][2] Transferred, it is the circling movement of the stars and planets.^[2][1] By metonymy it is the dancers themselves, as in Propertius' where they will place you in the front of the dance, and it is applied to a magistrate's escort.^[2] Church Latin glosses it choir, dancing, dance.^[5]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro of the dance of the stars.^[2][4]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses the singular.^[3][4]
• 57/46–12 BC – Propertius of the dancers.^[2][4]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of round dances.^[3][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A round dance, a dance in a ring.^[2][3][1][5]
2. The circling movement of the stars.^[2][1]
3. The dancers; an escort.^[2]

Related words

• choricus
• chorus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson