encaustus

Forms

encaustus (feminine encausta, neuter encaustum); first/second-declension adjective^[1] It is also spelled encautus.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek ἔγκαυστος (énkaustos, “burnt in”),^[4][2][1] from ἐν- (en-, “in”) and καυστός (kaustós, “burnt”), from καίω (kaíō, “to burn”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pliny the Elder uses it of the encaustic kind of painting, done with molten wax, of which he says there were anciently two kinds,^[4][5] and Martial calls a picture of Phaethon encaustus, “burnt in”, a pun on the painting technique and on Phaethon's death by fire.^[6][5]

Semantic evolution

Beside the adjective, its neuter served as a noun for encaustic work or a piece of it;^[4] the neuter encaustum also became the name of the purple-red ink of the later emperors.^[2] Conte gives it as the source of Italian encausto.^[6]

Timeline

• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder writes of the encaustic method of painting.^[4][5][7]
• 40–102/103 AD – Martial calls a painted Phaethon encaustus.^[5][6][7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Burnt in; painted in encaustic, with molten wax as paint.^[4][2]
2. (neuter as noun) Encaustic work, or a piece of it.^[4]

Word family

• encautarium
• encausticus

Related words

• encaustum

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
6. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de