faenum

Forms

faenum n (genitive faenī); second declension^[1] Manuscripts write it faenum, foenum or fenum; the TLL takes faen- to be the original spelling, from faenisicei in an inscription of 117 BC.^[2] The Romance words go back to fēnum.^[2] A masculine fēnus occurs in the Itala.^[3][4]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[5][6][2] If the spelling ⟨fē-⟩ is the original one and ⟨fae-⟩ a hypercorrection, it is inherited from Proto-Italic *fēno-, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-no- (“yield”), from the root *dʰeh₁- “to suckle”, which would then also have meant “to bring forth”: the noun would have gone from “produce, yield” to “hay”.^[6][1] De Vaan relates fēcundus (“fertile”), fēnus (“interest on money”) and fētus (“offspring”) to the same development.^[6] But the TLL and Leumann take ⟨fae-⟩ to be the oldest spelling, from the inscriptional form of 117 BC, and then the etymology is unknown.^[6][2] The TLL also separates it from festūca (“stalk”).^[2]

Ancient grammarians derived it from the word for offspring, because the hay of the meadows stays and brings forth anew every year;^[2][7] Isidore of Seville explained it from the fire it feeds.^[2][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Cato,^[6][8] who in the De agri cultura speaks of late-cut hay, faenum cordum, and tells the farmer to cut the hay and take care not to cut it too late.^[5][3]

Semantic evolution

Its main sense is hay;^[5][7] Faenum Graecum, “Greek hay”, is fenugreek in Cato, Columella and Celsus.^[5][3] It appears in proverbs: Catulus, quoted by Cicero, said that beside a certain orator the others ought to be eating hay, and Horace's faenum habet in cornu, “he has hay on his horn”, warns of a dangerous man, like an ox that butts.^[5][3][7] Juvenal speaks of the Jews whose furniture is a basket and hay.^[7] In medieval British Latin it is hay and the hay crop, the second crop, the tithe of hay, and perhaps haymaking, hayfield and hay market;^[9] Bede uses it of cutting hay for winter.^[9] In Ecclesiastical Latin it means grass or hay.^[10] It continues in Italian fieno and Sardinian fenu.^[1]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato uses it of hay and of fenugreek.^[5][8]
• 117 BC – An inscription has faenisicei, with the spelling ⟨fae-⟩.^[2][6]
• 65–8 BC – Horace uses the proverb faenum habet in cornu.^[5][8]
• c. 67–c. 127 AD – Juvenal speaks of the Jews' basket and hay.^[7][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. Hay.^[5][7]
2. faenum Graecum: fenugreek.^[5]
3. (Medieval Latin) The hay crop; the second crop of hay; the tithe of hay.^[9]

Word family

• faenārius
• faeneus
• faeniculum
• faenīle
• faenīlia
• faenisicium

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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 Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
4. ^ Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
9. ^ a b c 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
10. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson