Etymologically
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farrago

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Pronunciation

  • IPA (Classical): [farˈraː.ɡoː][1]
  • IPA (Ecclesiastical): [farˈraː.ɡo][1]

Forms

farrāgō f (genitive farrāginis); third declension[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin far (“emmer, grain”) + -āgō.[2][1][3] Far is *fars (“flour”); de Vaan thinks the stem may be a loanword for a primitive grain.[4] Varro has a form ferrāgō, made by popular etymology from ferrum “iron”.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Varro onwards.[4][5] Varro uses it of a mixed crop.[2][6]

Semantic evolution

It was a mixed crop of inferior grains sown for animal fodder, as in Varro, Virgil and Pliny.[2][6] Festus defines it as what is given to draught animals from several crops.[6] Columella speaks of a barley farrago.[7]

Juvenal calls the varied contents of his book nostri farrago libelli, “the hotchpotch of my little book”, and it came to mean a medley or a trifle.[7][8] Isidore says it is named from far and is barley grass still green.[9] English farrago “hodgepodge” was borrowed in the 1630s.[10]

Timeline

  • 116–27 BC – Varro uses it of mixed fodder.[2][5]
  • 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it in the Georgics.[6][5]
  • c. 67–c. 127 AD – Juvenal uses it of the medley of his satires.[7][5]
  • 1630s – English farrago is borrowed.[10]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A mixed crop of grains grown for fodder, mash.[2][1]
  2. A medley, hotchpotch.[7][1]
  3. A trifle.[7][8]

Word family

  • farrāginārium

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ 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 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 c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  8. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
  9. ^ Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911).
  10. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com