comoedicus

Forms

cōmoedicus (feminine cōmoedica, neuter cōmoedicum); first and second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek κωμῳδικός (kōmōidikós, “of comedy”),^[1][2][3] the adjective of κωμῳδία (kōmōidía), from which Latin has cōmoedia.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Apuleius, in the Florida, speaks of someone renowned in the comic art (in arte comoedica nobilis).^[5][6][7] The adverb cōmoedicē, “as in a comedy”, is older: Plautus uses it in the Miles gloriosus.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Fulgentius, in the preface to his Mythologies, says that Thalia soothed with comic pleasantry (comoedica vernulitate), and sets comic fancies beside tragic pathos and satire.^[6] Georges notes it as the opposite of tragicus.^[3] The Bohemian medieval Latin dictionary still records it in the sense of belonging to comedy.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius uses the adjective of the comic art.^[6][4]
• c. 500 AD – Fulgentius uses it in the preface to his Mythologies.^[6][4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of or belonging to comedy, comic.^[1][2]

Word family

• cōmoedicē

References

1. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
8. ^ Latinitatis medii aevi lexicon Bohemorum / Slovník středověké latiny v českých zemích (1977–), Prague: Academia; electronic version, Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences