Etymologically
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drachma

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈdrakʰ.ma][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈdrak.ma][1]

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
  • 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