citharista

Forms

citharista m (genitive citharistae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek κιθαριστής (kitharistḗs, “lyre player”).^[2][1][3] The Greek form ⟨citharistes⟩ also occurs.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Cicero,^[5] who speaks of a famous statue of a cithara player from Aspendus.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It names a player on the cithara or lyre.^[2][3] Lewis & Short note that it is found mostly in Cicero, who also used it of the statue of a cithara player from Aspendus; of that statue the Greeks said proverbially that it “sang everything inside”.^[3] Pomponius wrote an Atellan farce called Citharista.^[4]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it in his speeches.^[3][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A player on the cithara, a lyre player.^[2][3]
2. The statue of a cithara player.^[3]

Word family

• citharistria

Related words

• cithara

References

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