concolor

Forms

concolor (genitive concolōris); third-declension one-termination adjective (non-i-stem)^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin con- + color (“colour”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan traces color, early ⟨colōs⟩, to Proto-Italic *kelōs- (“outside, aspect”) and Proto-Indo-European *ḱel-ōs (“cover, covering”); in Latin the word shifted from “covering” to “colour”.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it first in Virgil,^[3] who in the Aeneid describes a white sow with her white young.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

It is most frequent in Ovid, and Columella is the first prose writer to use it.^[3][6] It takes a dative or cum with the thing matched.^[7] Pliny the Elder uses it of something of one colour throughout,^[2] and an inscription seems to use it of belonging to the same faction.^[2] Apuleius applies it to statements that match one another,^[2][7] and in Late Latin it means alike or of the same kind, as in Prudentius and in Ambrose's phrase concolor Christō.^[8][7] Martianus Capella has a feminine concolōra.^[6] Medieval writers kept both the literal sense and “similar, equal”.^[9]

Timeline

• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of a sow and her young of the same colour.^[2][3][5]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it often.^[3][5]
• 1st century AD – Columella is the first to use it in prose.^[3][5]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius uses it of matching statements.^[2][5]
• 348/49–c. 413 AD – Prudentius uses it of things of the same kind.^[7][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of the same colour, matching in colour.^[2][6]
2. Of one colour throughout, uniform in colour.^[2][7]
3. Belonging to the same faction.^[2]
4. (of statements) Agreeing, matching.^[2][7]
5. (Late Latin) Alike, of the same kind.^[8][7]

Related words

• color
• discolor

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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f 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 f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
9. ^ Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften