famelicus

Forms

famēlicus (feminine famēlica, neuter famēlicum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin famēs (“hunger”), formed through an unattested adjective *famēlis (“hungry”) which it presupposes, with the suffix -cus.^[2][3][1] The origin of famēs itself is unclear: de Vaan finds the old comparison with fatīgō too vague in form and meaning, and thinks the formation of the stem may point to a root of the shape ⟨fam-⟩.^[2]

The grammarian Donatus explained it as a blend of ⟨fames⟩ and ⟨edo⟩ “eat”, as if it were ⟨famedicus⟩.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus on,^[2][5] whose Casina has lassus et famelicus, “tired and starving”.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The word means starved, famished or hungry.^[3] Lewis and Short note that it is mostly ante- and post-classical and not found in Cicero.^[6] Used as a noun it means a starving person, as in Terence's Eunuchus;^[6] Pliny the Elder applies it to a rapacious bird and Juvenal to herds.^[6]

In Christian Latin the Vulgate uses the noun in the Book of Job,^[6] and ecclesiastical Latin also has the spelling familicus.^[7] The TLL records the southern Spanish form jamelgo as a descendant.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of a tired and hungry man.^[6][5]
• 190–159 BC – Terence uses it as a noun, “the starving man”.^[6]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder calls a bird rapacious and famished.^[6]
• c. 67–c. 127 AD – Juvenal speaks of famished herds.^[6]
• 390–406 AD – The Vulgate uses it as a noun in the Book of Job.^[6][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Starved, famished, hungry.^[3][6]
2. (as a noun) A starving or hungry person.^[6]

Word family

• famelico

References

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