coeliacus

Forms

coeliacus (feminine coeliaca, neuter coeliacum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek κοιλιακός (koiliakós, “of the bowels”),^[2][3][1] from κοιλία (koilía, “belly, bowels”),^[1][4] which comes from κοῖλος (koîlos, “hollow”).^[4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cato's treatise on agriculture is the first to use it, in a remedy for pain in the side and for disorders of the bowels.^[2][3][5]

Semantic evolution

It remained a medical word for what concerns the bowels: pain or disease seated there, a person suffering from it, and remedies against it.^[2][3] Varro even says that sick bees become coeliac.^[2] The feminine coeliaca was used as a noun for a stomach remedy.^[3] L&S notes that Celsus writes the word in Greek.^[3] The TLL records spellings with cyl- and cil- in late medical writers.^[6]

Medieval texts use the adjective of the bowels, the masculine noun for a person with lientery and the feminine for the disease itself;^[7] a British text explains the ciliaca passio as a flux of the belly coming from a defect of the stomach.^[8] English borrowed it in the 1660s.^[4]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato uses it of disorders of the bowels.^[2][5]
• 116–27 BC – Varro says that sick bees become coeliac.^[2][5]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of remedies for the bowels.^[2][5]
• 1660s – English borrows it as coeliac.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of pain or disease: seated in the bowels, abdominal.^[2][3]
2. Suffering from a disease of the bowels; as a noun, a person who suffers from one.^[2][7]
3. Of medicines: meant to cure disorders of the bowels.^[2]

Noun

1. coeliaca: a remedy for the stomach.^[3]
2. (Medieval Latin) coeliaca: lientery, a flux of the bowels.^[7][8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ a b c Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
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