Etymologically
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commissura

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [kɔm.mɪsˈsuː.ra][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [kom.misˈsuː.ra][1]

Forms

commissūra f (genitive commissūrae); first declension[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin committō (“to join, connect”) + -ūra, with the regular change of /tt/ to /ss/.[2][1][3] De Vaan lists that verb among the compounds of mittō (“to send”), which he traces to Proto-Italic *meit-e/o- and Proto-Indo-European *m(e)ith2- (“to exchange, remove”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's earliest quotation is from Cato's De agricultura,[2] of the joint of a rope, for which three feet are reckoned.[5][2]

Semantic evolution

Cicero uses it of the wonderful joints of the bones and of the supple joints of the fingers,[2][5] and Columella of the joint in a plant where new wood grows.[2] Pliny the Elder uses it of the intersections of orbits, Seneca of the crossings in a knot and of the boundary between the colours of a rainbow.[2] Quintilian applies it to the meeting of the end of one word with the start of the next, where consonants clash.[2] In medieval Latin it is a carpenter's scarf joint.[6]

Timeline

  • 234–149 BC – Cato uses it of the joint of a rope.[2][5][7]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of the joints of bones and fingers.[2][5][7]
  • 1st century AD – Columella uses it of plants.[2][7]
  • c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian uses it of the junction of words.[2][7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A joint, juncture or seam where two parts meet; a joint in the body or in a plant.[2][5]
  2. An intersection; a crossing in a knot; a dividing line.[2]
  3. (rhetoric) The meeting of the end of one word with the beginning of the next.[2]
  4. (Ecclesiastical Latin) A patch.[8]
  5. (Medieval Latin) A scarf joint in carpentry.[6]

Word family

  • commissuralis

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
  7. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  8. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson