cruciamentum

Forms

cruciāmentum n (genitive cruciāmentī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin cruciō (“to torture”) + -mentum.^[2][1][3] The verb is from crux “cross”, which de Vaan traces, with a question mark, to Proto-Italic *kruk(-i)-.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus on,^[4] meaning a torture or torment: in the Captivi a speaker says he has often seen paintings of the torments that take place in the underworld.^[5][3]

Semantic evolution

The word stayed rare.^[5] Cicero contrasts the tortures of the executioner with the cruciāmenta of illnesses, which can be worse,^[5][6] and Arnobius has it in late antiquity.^[5] Köbler records it in British medieval Latin from 1191.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it in the Asinaria and the Captivi.^[3][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero speaks of “cruciamenta morborum” in the Philippics.^[5][7]
• 297–310 AD – Arnobius uses it of the pains of losing one's children.^[5][7]
• 1191 – It is recorded in medieval Latin.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A torture, torment, pain.^[2][5]

Usage notes

Döderlein distinguishes cruciātus and cruciāmenta, any pangs, natural or inflicted, from tormenta, pains caused by an instrument of torture such as the rack; he quotes Cicero's “nec vero graviora sunt carnificum tormenta quam interdum cruciamenta morborum” (“the tortures of the executioners are not worse than the torments of illness sometimes are”).^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b 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 g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
7. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de