equiferus

Forms

equiferus m (genitive equiferī); second declension^[1] Glossaries also have equifer.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is a compound from Latin equus (“horse”) + ferus (“wild”),^[4][1] given the ending of an adjective; the TLL compares later Greek compounds of the same kind.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pliny the Elder is the first to use it, listing remedies made from the wild horse,^[2][5] which, he says, the Greeks did not write about because their lands did not produce it.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Boethius took it as his example of a compound noun whose parts mean nothing by themselves, against the phrase equus ferus.^[2] Isidore of Seville used it of ash-grey horses that are unfit for life in town.^[2]

In medieval Britain it meant a horse bred from wild stock and then simply a horse or mount; accounts of 1318 value one beside ordinary horses.^[3] Albertus Magnus repeated Boethius' grammatical example.^[6]

Timeline

• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder lists remedies from the wild horse.^[2][5][7]
• c. 560–636 AD – Isidore of Seville applies it to ash-grey horses.^[2][7]
• 1318 – Durham accounts value an equiferus beside other horses.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A kind of wild horse.^[4][5]
2. (Medieval Latin) A horse bred from wild stock; a horse, a mount.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c d 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
4. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de