ebur

Forms

ebur n (genitive eboris); third declension^[1] Quintilian reports that the grammarian Antonius Gnipho proposed a plural ebura.^[2]

Etymology

It is a foreign word, probably borrowed from Egyptian ꜣbw (“elephant, ivory”), perhaps through a Demotic form.^[2][3][1] The TLL also compares the Coptic word for “elephant”,^[3] and Lewis and Short connect Sanskrit इभ (ibha, “elephant”) and Greek ἐλέφας (eléphas, “ivory, elephant”).^[4]

Servius and Isidore of Seville derived it from ⟨barrus⟩, a word for the elephant.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler gives Plautus,^[5] who has “you might as well ask to whiten ivory with ink” in the Mostellaria;^[2] Ennius has a house fitted with gold and ivory.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is ivory, as in Ennius' furnished house, and the ivory of the false gate of dreams, after Homer, as in Statius; it is a type of whiteness and the colour of ivory, as in Plautus.^[2][4] It is an elephant's tusk, as Silius' spear tipped with ivory, and by extension the elephant itself.^[2][1] It is also something made of ivory: ivory objects polished with radish in Pliny the Elder, an ivory statue, as Virgil's ivory weeping in the temples, and the curule chair of a magistrate, as Horace's ivory that the people give and take away.^[2][4]

Church Latin keeps it as “ivory”.^[6] Köbler finds it in the Bible and Hrabanus Maurus.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of whitening ivory.^[2][5]
• 204–169 BC – Ennius of a house fitted with ivory.^[2][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of weeping ivory statues.^[2][5]
• 65–8 BC – Horace of the ivory curule chair.^[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Ivory; ivory colour.^[2][4][1][6]
2. An elephant's tusk;^[2][1] (figuratively) an elephant.^[2][1]
3. An object made of ivory: an ivory statue; the curule chair.^[2][4][1]

Word family

• eborārius
• eboreus
• eburātus
• eburneus

Related words

• elephantus
• barrus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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 c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson