Etymologically
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femur

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈfɛ.mʊr][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈfɛː.mur][1]

Forms

femur n (genitive feminis or femoris); third declension[1] Apuleius has a nominative femus and Ampelius femen.[2][3] The oblique cases are usually feminis etc., less often femoris, as in Cicero and Ovid.[2][3]

Etymology

The origin is unknown.[2][4][5] De Vaan calls it an isolated r/n-stem, which must be an archaic formation; he notes Steinbauer's derivation from Proto-Indo-European *dʰen-ur (“bow”), unproblematic in meaning but without phonetic support.[3][1] De Saussure compared Sanskrit words for the buttocks and a part of the body.[6] Isidore explained the name from fēmina (“woman”), because in that part the male sex differs from the woman.[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus,[3] whose Pseudolus speaks of what the upper thighs support.[2]

Semantic evolution

It is the thigh of a human being, and the corresponding part of animals, as Plautus' lame asses whose hooves were worn down to the thighs.[2] Döderlein distinguishes coxa, the hip, from femur, the part below the hip.[8] Pliny the Elder names a plant femur būbulum, and Vitruvius uses it in architecture of the flat bands of a triglyph.[2] Wiktionary adds the figurative sense loins.[1] Church Latin glosses it thigh, loins.[9] English femur was first an architectural term (1560s) and means the thighbone from 1799.[5]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of human and animal thighs.[2][4]
  • c. 84–c. 25 BC – Vitruvius of a band of a triglyph.[2][4]
  • 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder of a plant named after it.[2][4]
  • 1560s – English femur is borrowed as an architectural term.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The thigh; the thighbone.[2][10][1]
  2. The thigh of an animal.[2]
  3. Figuratively, the loins.[1][9]
  4. In femur būbulum, an unidentified plant.[2]
  5. (architecture) A flat vertical band on a triglyph.[2][1]

Word family

  • feminālia
  • femorāle
  • femorālis
  • interfemus

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  4. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  5. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  7. ^ Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911).
  8. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
  9. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  10. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press