falcatus

Forms

falcātus (feminine falcāta, neuter falcātum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin falx (“sickle”) + -ātus.^[2][1][3] The origin of falx is unclear: de Vaan finds a comparison with Old Irish delg (“thorn, pin”) and Old Norse dálkr (“pin, dagger”) acceptable in meaning but not in form, so that at most it is a borrowing from a non-Latin Indo-European language of Italy;^[4][5] Ernout and Meillet suspected a loanword.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Virgil and the Bellum Alexandrinum;^[6] Virgil has curved swords for close fighting, falcati comminus enses.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It means furnished with curved blades, especially of scythed chariots, in the Bellum Alexandrinum, Livy and Curtius;^[2][7] Livy also has beams fitted with hooks that swept the battlements.^[2] It also means curved like a sickle or pruning hook:^[2] Ovid uses it of a curved sword, as the one with which Perseus wounds the sea monster,^[3][7] and Servius explains Virgil's curved sword as the harpē of Perseus.^[3] Ovid also has a sickle-shaped tail, and Pliny the Elder too uses it of a tail.^[2][7] English falcate (1801), “curved like a sickle”, is from it.^[5]

Timeline

• 70–19 BC – Virgil, of curved swords.^[3][6]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy, of scythed chariots and hooked beams.^[2][7][6]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid, of a curved sword and a sickle-shaped tail.^[3][2][6]
• 1801 – Borrowed into English as falcate.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Furnished with curved blades; of chariots, scythed.^[2][7][1]
2. Curved like a sickle, hooked, falcate.^[2][7][1][5]

Related words

• falx
• falcārius
• English falcate

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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 e f Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b 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 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press