Etymologically
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cruciamentum

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [krʊ.ki.aːˈmɛn.tũː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [kru.t͡ʃi.aˈmɛn.tum][1]

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