Etymologically
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emporium

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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

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