epulae

Forms

epulae f pl (genitive epulārum); first declension^[1] Festus cites a singular epula.^[2]

Etymology

It is the feminine plural beside epulum (“feast, banquet”), and its origin is uncertain.^[3][4][5] De Vaan sets up Proto-Italic *ep(V)lo- (“ritual?”) and reports Nussbaum's derivation from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ep-lo-, from the root of apiō (“to seize”), a banquet as a chance to grab food; he finds it only a root etymology, since the possible cognate Old High German uoba (“festival”) has another vowel and the sense “taking” is not certain.^[3] Walde–Hofmann and Ernout–Meillet connected it with ops “work”, and the OLD suggests it was first a ritual term, “religious performance”, comparing opus and afalōn (“to work”); de Vaan finds no firm evidence that the word was ever religious.^[3][2] Isidore derived it from ⟨opulentia⟩ “wealth”.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus, Trinummus, of a rich man who could have feasts heaped on him by his clients (congestae … epulae ā cluentibus).^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Epulae is a sumptuous meal, especially one given for many people, a feast or banquet, often at a religious or public festival.^[2][1] It also means the dishes served at such a meal, delicacies (Cicero, Pliny), and in Horace, jokingly, clothes are a feast for moths.^[2] Wiktionary adds the figurative sense “food”.^[1]

Döderlein calls epulae the general word for a meal, frugal or rich, at home or in public, beside convīvium, a social meal, and dapēs, a meal of offerings.^[6] Church Latin glosses it “feast, feasts”.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of feasts heaped up by clients.^[2][8]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of tables loaded with choice dishes.^[2][8]
• 65–8 BC – Horace of clothes as a feast for moths.^[2][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A feast, banquet.^[2][1][7]
2. The dishes of a banquet, delicacies.^[2][1]
3. (figurative) Food.^[1]

Word family

• epulāris

Related words

• epulō
• epulor
• epulum

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de