elephas

Forms

elephās m (genitive elephantis); third declension^[1] The nominative elephāns also occurs, in the Bellum Africum, Lucan and Pliny the Elder.^[2][3] Poets use the Greek accusatives elephanta and elephantas.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek ἐλέφας (eléphās, “ivory; elephant”),^[2][4][5][1] which is already found in Mycenaean as Mycenaean Greek e-re-pa.^[6] The Greek word is itself a foreign word of unclear origin.^[6][5] Beekes notes that its ending recalls the Egyptian word for “elephant, ivory” and its beginning a Hamitic word for the elephant, but finds the details unclear;^[6] Wiktionary mentions a possible source in Egyptian ꜣbw.^[1] The Latin ebur “ivory” is likewise a foreign word.^[6]

Ancient writers derived it from Greek λόφος (lóphos, “hill”), since the animal is shaped like a mountain.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first author is Lucretius,^[5] who uses it for the disease elephantiasis: est elephas morbus qui propter flumina Nili gignitur, “there is the elephant disease, which arises along the river Nile”.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In the Classical period it named the animal, as in Horace's elephas albus “white elephant” and Lucan's Libycus elephans,^[2][3] as well as the disease.^[2][8] The OLD treats it as a form of elephantus, the second-declension noun from the same Greek word, which also meant “ivory”.^[2]

Medieval writers in Britain used it for the animal from Aldhelm on, and also figuratively;^[9] Matthew Paris records under the year 1255 an elephant given by the king of France to the king of England, the first, he believed, ever seen there.^[9] In England it also named the elephant house at the Tower of London.^[9] Du Cange records it as a name for a horn or trumpet, like Roland's ivory horn, which poets called oliphant;^[10] English took the word through Old French olifant.^[11]

Timeline

• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it for elephantiasis.^[2][5]
• 65–8 BC – Horace writes of a white elephant.^[2][3]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it of the animal.^[8][5]
• 39–65 AD – Lucan has the form elephans.^[2][3]
• 1st century AD – Manilius uses the Greek accusatives elephanta and elephantas.^[2][3][5]
• 639–709 AD – Aldhelm uses it in his riddles.^[9][5]
• 1277 – An English record names the elephant house at the Tower of London.^[9]
• c. 1300 – English has olyfaunt, from Old French, ultimately from Latin.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. An elephant.^[2][3][8]
2. (medicine) Elephantiasis.^[2][3][8]
3. (Medieval Latin) A horn or trumpet, an oliphant.^[10]
4. (Medieval Latin) Ivory.^[12]

Related words

• elephāns
• elephantus
• ebur
• English elephant

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
5. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d 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
7. ^ Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911)., p. 12.2.14
8. ^ a b c d Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
9. ^ a b c d e 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
10. ^ a b du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre
11. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ Latinitatis medii aevi lexicon Bohemorum / Slovník středověké latiny v českých zemích (1977–), Prague: Academia; electronic version, Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences