cotoneus

Forms

cotōneus (feminine cotōnea, neuter cotōneum); first/second-declension adjective^[1] The OLD also records the spelling cotōnius.^[2]

Etymology

Wiktionary takes it borrowed from Ancient Greek κυδώνιον (kudṓnion, “quince”), the fruit named after Κυδωνία (Kudōnía), and treats the Latin name of the quince as a variant of mālum cydōnium, a rendering of the Greek name of the fruit.^[1] Georges describes Cydonia as an ancient city on the north coast of Crete, the home of quinces.^[3]

The OLD regards the Latin word as probably cognate with the Greek name of the fruit but not derived from it, and compares the adjective ⟨Cydōnius⟩.^[2] Köbler too refers it to cydōnia, with a question mark.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Cato's De agri cultura, where cotonea are listed among the kinds of apples to be planted, that is, quinces.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Used with mālum, the adjective named the quince and also the quince tree; as a neuter noun, cotōneum, it named the fruit and the tree by itself, as in Pliny the Elder.^[2] In the writings of the Roman land surveyors the feminine, understood with arbor, is a quince tree used as a boundary mark: three such trees showed the point where three properties met.^[5] Wiktionary records the feminine as a noun, “quince tree”.^[1]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato lists cotonea among the apples in his De agri cultura.^[2][4]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses the neuter as a noun for the quince and for the quince tree.^[2][4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of the quince;^[2] mālum cotōneum, a quince, also a quince tree.^[2]
2. (neuter as a noun) A quince; a quince tree.^[2]

Noun

1. (feminine, understood with arbor) A quince tree, in the land surveyors a boundary tree.^[5][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d 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. ^ Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften