fagus

Forms

fāgus f (genitive fāgī); second declension^[1] A nominative and accusative plural fāgūs occurs in Varro and the Culex.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *fāgo-, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂g-o- (“oak; beech”).^[4][1][5] Cognate with Ancient Greek φηγός (phēgós, “a kind of oak; acorn”), Old English bōc and Old English bēce and Old High German buohha (“beech”).^[4][2] De Vaan notes that some scholars took it for a later loanword, because it is found only in the western languages and names different trees, but since oak and beech are both fruit-bearing trees, the shift is conceivable and the word may be Indo-European after all.^[4] Lewis & Short think the root meant “to eat”, the tree being named for its edible fruit,^[6] and Servius already derived it from the Greek for eating, since men once lived on acorns.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Varro,^[4] who has the plural fāgūs and says the Greeks call them by their own word.^[3] Köbler dates it from Catullus.^[5]

Semantic evolution

It is the beech tree: Virgil's Eclogues open with lying under the cover of a spreading beech, and Caesar, Ovid and Pliny the Elder also name it.^[2][6] It is also beechwood: Vitruvius says no axle of Turkey oak or beech lasts long, and Ovid has cups made of beech.^[2] In medieval Latin it can mean the right to take firewood from a forest.^[7]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro has the plural fāgūs.^[3][4][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of a spreading beech.^[2][5]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar.^[2][6][5]
• c. 84–c. 25 BC – Vitruvius of beechwood axles.^[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A beech tree.^[2][6][1]
2. Beechwood.^[2]
3. (Medieval Latin) The right to take faggots from a wood.^[7]

Word family

• fāgeus
• fāgum

Related words

• English beech

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e 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 f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill