commembris

Forms

commembris m (genitive commembris); third declension^[1][2]

Etymology

It is from Latin com- + membrum (“limb, member”), a word that, according to the TLL, Augustine made up himself.^[1][3] The TLL compares the neuter commembrum of the same meaning.^[1] The noun membrum goes back to Proto-Italic *memsro- and Proto-Indo-European *mēms-ro- (“body-part, meaty part”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Augustine uses it in his treatise against lying, of people who are not close to us in the fellowship of truth and are not, ut ita dīcam, “so to speak”, our commembrēs, fellow members.^[1][3] The apology shows that the word was new.^[1]

Semantic evolution

It stayed a rare word of Christian writers, always for a fellow member of one body, the Church as the body of Christ.^[1][5] Adamnan's life of Saint Columba has the Lord turn the south wind into a north wind and bring nostrōs commembrēs, “our fellow members”, back from danger.^[2][5][3] Guibert of Nogent, in his work on the relics of the saints, writes that whoever receives Christ worthily in the Eucharist becomes a fellow member of the head, and that Christ in heaven unites his own to himself as commembrēs.^[5]

Timeline

• 354–430 AD – Augustine coins it, apologising for it with ut ita dīcam.^[1][3]
• c. 700 – Adamnan uses it in his life of Saint Columba.^[2][5][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (Late Latin, Ecclesiastical Latin) A fellow member of one and the same body, especially of the Church.^[1][5][3]

Related words

• membrum

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
2. ^ a b c Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
3. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d e du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre