cunabula

Forms

cūnābula n pl (genitive cūnābulōrum); second declension^[1] Grammarians list it among nouns that are always neuter plural,^[2] but Priscian and the glossaries also have a singular cūnābulum.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin cūnae + -bulum,^[4][2] from cūnae (“cradle”) with a suffix for vessels and places.^[1] The noun cūnae goes back to Proto-Italic *koina- (“cradle”) and Proto-Indo-European *ḱoi-no- (“lair, cradle”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero has it first, in On Divination, of a child lying in the cradle.^[4][2][6]

Semantic evolution

Besides a baby's cradle, Virgil uses it of the cells where young bees are reared and Pliny the Elder of birds' nests.^[4][7] As a symbol of infancy it meant one's earliest years, as in a prīmīs cūnābulīs “from the cradle” in Columella,^[7][8] and also birth or descent: Cicero speaks of consuls made not in the cradle but on the Campus Martius, that is, not by their descent.^[7][8] By another extension it meant the first home of a person or people, as Virgil calls Crete the cradle “of our race”,^[4][7] and the beginnings of anything, the origins of a city in Apuleius or of law in the Digest.^[7][8] Bede explains it as swaddling clothes,^[2] and Ecclesiastical Latin keeps the senses cradle and nest.^[9]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it for a child's cradle and, figuratively, for birth.^[4][7][6]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it for the cells of young bees and for the first home of a people.^[4][7][6]
• 1st century AD – Columella has a prīmīs cūnābulīs, “from earliest childhood”.^[7][6]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it for birds' nests.^[7][6]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius speaks of the cradle of a city.^[7][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A cradle.^[4][7]
2. The cells of young bees; a bird's nest.^[4][7]
3. (figurative) Earliest childhood; birth, descent.^[4][7]
4. The first home of a person or people, a birthplace.^[4][7]
5. (figurative) A beginning, origin.^[7][8]

Related words

• incūnābula

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
9. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson