Etymologically
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exta

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈɛk.sta], [ˈɛk.staː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈɛk.sta], [ˈɛk.sta][1]

Forms

exta n pl (genitive extōrum); second declension[1] Pacuvius has the genitive plural extum.[2][3] The Arval inscriptions have a feminine extae.[3][4]

Etymology

The origin is doubtful.[2] It may come by haplology from ⟨*exsecta⟩, the neuter plural participle of exsecō (“to cut out”), as the TLL and Wiktionary think, after Walde and Hofmann.[2][4][1] Lewis and Short connected it instead with extrā (“outside”) and exterus (“outer”).[3] Paulus' abridgement of Festus says the entrails were so called because they are cut off for the gods, or because they stand out most.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has the lamb so thin that its entrails can be inspected in the sun while it lives, in the Aulularia, and portents in all the entrails, in the Poenulus.[4]

Semantic evolution

It is the upper internal organs of an animal, the heart, lungs and liver, above all as the parts the haruspices examined in a sacrificial victim, as Cicero's “we see that different people read the entrails in different ways”.[2][3] The entrails were also offered on the altar, as in the old formula exta porriciuntō, “let them offer the entrails”, and in Livy.[3] Pliny the Elder uses it of the human organs.[3][5]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a lamb's entrails and of portents.[4][5]
  • 220–130 BC – Pacuvius has the genitive extum.[2][5]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of reading entrails.[3][5]
  • 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder of human organs.[3][5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The entrails (heart, lungs, liver), especially of a sacrificial victim.[2][3][1]

Word family

  • extālis
  • extāris
  • extispex

Usage notes

Lewis and Short distinguish exta, the nobler organs examined by the haruspices, from vīscera, which also include the stomach and intestines.[3] Döderlein makes vīscera everything fleshy beneath the skin.[6]

References

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