ciconia

Forms

cicōnia f (genitive cicōniae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

The origin is unknown according to the OLD.^[2] De Vaan thinks that the reduplication is part of an onomatopoeic formation, as in cicāda.^[3] He doubts a connection with canō (“to sing”), which would need a root form Proto-Indo-European *koh₂n-, since the clattering of a stork's bill is hardly singing.^[3] Wiktionary nevertheless gives it as perhaps *kikōniā, from Proto-Indo-European *kekoh₂n- (“stork”), a reduplicated form of the root of that verb,^[1] and Köbler compares Pokorny's *kan- (“to sound, sing”) with a question mark.^[4]

Plautus reports that at Praeneste the stork was called cōnea.^[3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus on,^[3][4] meaning the stork: in the Truculentus a line runs Praenestinis conea est ciconia, “at Praeneste a stork is a conea”.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

Besides the bird, which Horace, Ovid, Pliny the Elder and Juvenal mention,^[5] it named a mocking gesture made by bending the fingers like a stork's bill behind someone's back: Persius addresses Janus as one a tergo quem nulla ciconia pinsit, “whom no stork pecks from behind”.^[2][5] Jerome still uses it of this gesture.^[5]

Countrymen also called ciconia a T-shaped tool for measuring the depth of a trench, as Columella reports,^[2][5] and Wiktionary adds a pivoting pole for drawing water.^[1] In Ecclesiastical Latin it is glossed both “stork” and “crane”.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus records the Praenestine form conea.^[3][4]
• 65–8 BC – Horace mentions the stork.^[5][4]
• 34–62 AD – Persius uses it for a mocking gesture.^[2][4]
• 1st century AD – Columella uses it for a measuring tool.^[2][4]
• c. 383–419/420 AD – Jerome uses it for the mocking gesture.^[5][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A stork.^[2][5]
2. A mocking gesture made with the fingers in the shape of a stork's bill.^[2][5]
3. A T-shaped tool for measuring the depth of a trench.^[2][5]
4. A pivoting pole for drawing water, a well sweep.^[1]
5. (Ecclesiastical Latin) A stork or crane.^[6]

Word family

• ciconinus

Related words

• cicāda

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