cothurnus

Forms

cothurnus m (genitive cothurnī); second declension^[1] It is also spelled coturnus.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek κόθορνος (kóthornos).^[2][4][1][5] Köbler takes the Greek word itself for a loanword, perhaps from Lydian.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's first citation is a line of Livius Andronicus, quoted by Terentianus Maurus, that tells someone to lace the calves into a purple hunting boot.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is a high boot or buskin, laced up the front and covering the whole foot: Virgil's Diana wears a red one for hunting, Velleius and Tacitus have it as the dress of Bacchus, and Pliny the Elder and Juvenal mention it too.^[2][4] Above all it is the thick-soled boot of tragic actors, which made them look taller, as against the soccus of comedy.^[2][4] From this it stands for the style of tragedy, for tragic poetry and the tragic stage:^[2][4] Propertius speaks of composing words in the buskin of Aeschylus, Horace of iambics taken up by both the sock and the buskin, and Quintilian of the buskin and sound of Sophocles.^[2] Pliny the Elder even uses it of grandeur in painting.^[2][4] Ammianus Marcellinus uses it of the majesty of imperial authority,^[4] and in medieval Latin it means pride or arrogance.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 280–200 BC – Livius Andronicus of a purple boot.^[2]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of a boot that fits the foot.^[2][4][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of a hunting boot.^[2][4]
• 65–8 BC – Horace of the tragic boot and of tragedy.^[2][4]
• c. 390 AD – Ammianus Marcellinus of imperial majesty.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A high laced boot, buskin, especially a hunting boot.^[2][4][1]
2. The thick-soled boot of tragic actors.^[2][4]
3. (figurative) The elevated style of tragedy; tragic poetry, the tragic stage; grandeur.^[2][4][1]
4. (Late Latin) Majesty, dignity.^[4]
5. (Medieval Latin) Pride, arrogance.^[6]

Word family

• cothurnatio
• cothurnātus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill