exuviae

Forms

exuviae f pl (genitive exuviārum); first declension^[1] Festus has the spelling exsuviae.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin exuō (“to take off, strip”) + -ia, formed like its opposite induviae (“clothing”).^[2][3][1] De Vaan explains exuō as a compound of a verb ⟨-uō⟩ to put on, from Proto-Italic *ow-e/o- and Proto-Indo-European *h₃eu-e/o- (“to adorn, wear”); he finds the formation of the nouns conspicuous and suggests that their ⟨u⟩ was taken from the verb.^[4] Cognate with Umbrian anouihimu (“to put on”), Hittite unu- (“to adorn”) and Lithuanian aũti (“to put on shoes”).^[4] Festus derived it from stripping.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates the verb from Plautus;^[4] in the Epidicus the noun is the spoils a soldier gives to the enemy, and the Menaechmi sets induviae against exuviae.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

It is what is stripped off a body, and first the arms stripped from a defeated enemy, spoils.^[2][5] It is also a thing belonging to a person kept as a keepsake, as in Virgil's eighth Eclogue, “he left me these, dear pledges of himself”, and Dido's pyre with the arms and all the relics of the man.^[2][5] Of animals it is the skin stripped from a beast, often as a hunting trophy, and Plautus jokes about whips of oxhide; it is also the sloughed skin of a snake.^[2][1] Valerius Maximus uses it of the attributes of the gods carried in processions.^[2]

In Church Latin it means mortal remains.^[6] In medieval Latin it is mortal remains or relics, and the heriot, the best chattel due to a lord at a tenant's death.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of spoils and oxhide whips.^[2][8]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of keepsakes and relics.^[2][5][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. Arms stripped from an enemy, spoils; a keepsake of a person.^[2][5][1]
2. The skin stripped from a beast; the sloughed skin of a snake.^[2][1]
3. The attributes of the gods carried in processions.^[2]
4. (Ecclesiastical Latin) Mortal remains;^[6][7] (Medieval Latin) relics.^[6][7]
5. (Medieval Latin) The heriot.^[7]

Related words

• exuō
• induviae
• English exuviae

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c d Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
8. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de