emporium

Pronunciation

• IPA (Classical): [ɛmˈpɔ.ri.ũː]^[1]
• IPA (Ecclesiastical): [emˈpɔː.ri.um]^[1]

Forms

emporium n (genitive emporiī or emporī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek ἐμπόριον (empórion, “trading station”),^[2][3][1] from ἔμπορος (émporos, “merchant, traveller”), from ἐν (en, “in”) and πόρος (póros, “journey”).^[1][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has “at the market and in the meat-market”.^[2] Köbler dates Plautus c. 250–184 BC.^[5]

Semantic evolution

It meant a centre of trade, the business quarter of a city, as Cicero's journey through the emporium of Puteoli and Livy's emporium outside the Porta Trigemina, paved with stone.^[2] It also meant a trading town itself.^[6]

In medieval Latin it also meant a fair.^[5] English emporium was borrowed in the 1580s.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero passes through the emporium of Puteoli.^[2][5]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy writes of the emporium at Rome.^[2][5]
• 1580s – English emporium is borrowed.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A trading place, market, mart.^[2][1]
2. A market town.^[6][7]
3. (Medieval Latin) A fair.^[5]

Word family

• emporīticus

Related words

• English emporium

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
4. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
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 Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press