Etymologically
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compendiaria

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Forms

compendiāria f (genitive compendiāriae); first declension[1] Also spelled conpendiāria.[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin compendiārius (“short (of routes)”), the feminine of the adjective used as a noun with via (“road”) understood.[2][3][4] The adjective is from Latin compendium (“saving; shortening”) + -ārius.[2][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Varro's Menippean Satires,[2][5] figuratively, of a quick and easy way of reaching the same pleasure without trouble or bother.[2]

Semantic evolution

The literal sense, a short route, appears in Seneca's Apocolocyntosis: the freedman Narcissus had gone ahead by a short cut to receive his patron (antecesserat … compendiaria Narcissus libertus).[2][6] Petronius and Seneca's letters use it of a short cut to a goal, an easy method.[7][3] Seneca also has the neuter compendiārium in the same sense, with iter understood.[3][4]

The adjective is used with via in later writers too, in Ammianus Marcellinus for short and convenient roads,[6] and in an itinerary to Mount Sinai for the short way through the desert.[6]

Timeline

  • 116–27 BC – Varro uses it of an easy way to pleasure.[2][5]
  • 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it of a short cut to a goal.[7][3][5]
  • before 66 AD – Petronius uses it figuratively.[7][3][5]
  • c. 390 AD – Ammianus Marcellinus speaks of short roads (viae compendiariae).[6][5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A short route, a short cut.[2][4]
  2. (figurative) A quick or easy method.[2][3]

Usage notes

Pliny the Elder applies the adjective to a sketchy, quickly executed kind of painting (picturae compendiariae).[3]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  6. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  7. ^ a b c Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.