etesiae

Forms

etēsiae m pl (genitive etēsiārum); first declension^[1][2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek ἐτησίαι (etēsíai), with ἄνεμοι (ánemoi, “winds”) understood,^[1][2][3] from ἐτήσιος (etḗsios, “yearly”), from ἔτος (étos, “year”).^[4]

Ancient writers explained the name from the year: Hyginus says the winds were so called because they rise every year at a fixed time, and Isidore of Seville gives the same reason.^[2][5] Hyginus also reports a form ⟨aetēsiae⟩, which the OLD explains as an association with αἰτέω (aitéō, “to ask”), from the story that they were granted at Aristaeus' request by Jupiter.^[1][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is used by Lucretius and Cicero,^[6][7] for the north-westerly winds that blow every year in the Mediterranean during the dog days.^[1][7]

Semantic evolution

The word stayed a geographical and meteorological term for winds that blow at a fixed season, mostly north winds.^[1][2] L&S says that they blow for forty days, and Hyginus has them sent to temper the heat of the Dog Star.^[6][2] Caesar, Livy, Seneca and Columella use it too,^[6] and Pliny the Elder has a singular etēsiās.^[1] Isidore describes them as gusts of the north wind that blow straight from the north towards Egypt.^[5]

The TLL records many spellings, such as ⟨etasiae⟩, ⟨etesii⟩ and ⟨ethesiae⟩, and glossaries call them a breeze from the north.^[2]

Timeline

• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it.^[6][8]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it in his letters and his treatise on the gods.^[6][8]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar uses it.^[6][8]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses the singular etēsiās.^[1][8]
• c. 560–636 AD – Isidore explains the name from the year.^[5][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. (plural) The etesian winds, north-westerly winds that blow every summer in the Mediterranean during the dog days.^[1][6]
2. In general, winds that blow at a fixed time of year.^[1][2]

Related words

• etēsius

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
4. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911).
6. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de