drachma

Forms

drachma f (genitive drachmae); first declension^[1] The older form drachuma is usual in comedy and in Ennius.^[2][3] The genitive plural is usually drachmārum, but drachmūm is also found.^[3][2] A later spelling is dragma.^[2][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek δραχμή (drakhmḗ, “drachma”);^[5][3][6] Wiktionary takes it from the Doric form δραχμά (drakhmá).^[1] Köbler and Etymonline explain the Greek word as originally “a handful”, a noun from δράσσομαι (drássomai, “to grasp”).^[7][8] Beekes calls this the usual explanation, but notes that the Greek variants with ⟨drach-⟩ and ⟨darch-⟩ point rather to a Pre-Greek word.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

It appears first in Plautus and Ennius, in the older form drachuma, as the name of a Greek silver coin.^[5][2]

Semantic evolution

The drachma was worth about as much as the Roman dēnārius, and 6,000 of them made a talent.^[3][5] As a weight it was an eighth of an uncia, and it is used as such in Cato's recipes and in Pliny's medicine.^[5][2]

A later spelling was dragma;^[2] through Medieval Latin dragma and Old French dragme the word reached English in the late 14th century.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses drachuma for the Greek coin.^[5][2][7]
• 204–169 BC – Ennius uses the same form.^[5][2][7]
• 234–149 BC – Cato measures an ingredient by the drachma.^[5][7]
• 190–159 BC – Terence uses the form drachuma.^[2][7]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it as a weight in medical recipes.^[5][7]
• late 14th century – English borrows the word through Old French dragme.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A drachma, a Greek silver coin of about the value of a dēnārius.^[5][3]
2. A Greek weight, an eighth of an ounce; a dram.^[5][2]

Word family

• drachumissō

Related words

• English drachma

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
3. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ 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
6. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
7. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
8. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill