dumetum

Forms

dūmētum n (genitive dūmētī); second declension^[1] Festus, in Paul the Deacon's epitome, reports that the ancients called it dumecta.^[2][3][4] Also written dummētum.^[3][4] In quotations it is found only in the plural.^[2][4]

Etymology

It is from Latin dūmus (“thornbush, bramble”) + -ētum.^[2][1][4] De Vaan derives dūmus from Proto-Italic *dū̆smo-, noting an archaic adjective ⟨dusmo⟩ quoted from Livius Andronicus; he sees only one correspondence outside Italic, Old Irish dos (“shrub”), and no further connections.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan, Köbler and the TLL record it first in Cicero,^[5][6][4] who uses the plural dumeta of thickets.^[3] He also uses it figuratively: Stoicorum dumeta, the thorny thickets of the Stoics, into which he does not want to force his speech.^[3][7]

Semantic evolution

It is a clump of thorn or other bushes, a thicket,^[2] as in Virgil's Georgics and Horace's odes.^[3][7] Cicero's figurative uses of the thickets of Stoic argument, into which an opponent crawls, show it as an image of thorny reasoning.^[3]

Medieval writers in Britain use it for a brier-patch or thicket, as William of Malmesbury tells how the Danes threw Edmund's severed head into thickets.^[8]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of thickets and of the “thickets of the Stoics”.^[3][6]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it in the Georgics.^[3][7][6]
• 65–8 BC – Horace uses it in the odes.^[3][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A thicket, a clump of thornbushes, a brier-patch (usually in the plural).^[2][3][1][8]
2. (figurative) Thorny difficulties of argument.^[3][7]

Related words

• dūmus

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b c d Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press