fames

Forms

famēs f (genitive famis); third declension^[1] Cato and Lucilius have the genitive famī, Varro the nominative famis; the ablative is famē, with a long ē in the poets.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[4][5] Walde and, hesitantly, Pokorny reconstructed Proto-Indo-European *dʰH- (“to vanish, dwindle”), linking it with fatīgō (“to tire”), fessus (“weary”), Old Irish ded- (“to vanish”) and Old Norse dási (“slow”);^[4][1][6] de Vaan finds this comparison too vague in form and meaning, and suggests that the stem ⟨fam-ē-⟩ may point to a root ⟨*fam-⟩.^[4] The noun is passing from the fifth declension to the third.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler date it from Livius Andronicus.^[4][6] Naevius has famēs ācer augēscit hostibus, “fierce hunger grows on the enemy”, and Plautus hunc famēs iam occīderit, “hunger will have killed him by now”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Famēs is the desire for food, “hunger, appetite”, and the lack of food, “starvation”, then a scarcity of food, “famine” (Cicero: grain exported in a time of famine), and in medical writers fasting as a treatment.^[2][3][1] Figuratively it is a craving, as in Virgil's aurī sacra famēs, “accursed hunger for gold”, and in rhetoric a meagre, dry style.^[2]

Döderlein distinguishes famēs, hunger from want of food (opposite of satiety), from ēsuriēs, the craving of an empty stomach, and inedia, not eating at all.^[7] Church Latin glosses it “hunger, famine”.^[8] English famine comes from it through Vulgar Latin and Old French in the mid-14th century.^[5]

Timeline

• 280/260–before 200 BC – Livius Andronicus uses it.^[4][6]
• c. 235–200 BC – Naevius: famēs ācer augēscit hostibus.^[2][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of a famine.^[2][6]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil: aurī sacra famēs.^[2][6]
• mid-14th century – English famine.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. hunger, appetite.^[2][3][1][8]
2. Lack of food, starvation; famine.^[2][3][8]
3. (medicine) Fasting.^[2]
4. A craving, greed.^[2]
5. (rhetoric) Meagreness of style.^[2]

Related words

• fatīgō
• famēlicus
• English famine

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 j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
8. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson