fidelia

Forms

fidēlia f (genitive fidēliae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[1][2] The OLD and the TLL compare Ancient Greek πίθος (píthos, “large wine jar”), Attic φιδάκνη (phidáknē) and Old Norse biða (“milk pail”).^[3][2] Pokorny derives it from Proto-Indo-European *bʰidʰ- (“vessel”), through a form *fidesliā, and thinks the root may belong to *bʰeidʰ- (“to bind, plait”), since he takes fiscus (“wicker basket”) to be related.^[4][5] Wiktionary points out that the irregular Greek forms and the narrow, noun-only root could rather point to a substrate word or a wanderwort, as is usual for names of Neolithic objects,^[1] and de Vaan calls the link with the basket word gratuitous.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has it first,^[2][5] in the Aulularia, in a pun on the goddess Fides, who is promised a pot full of honeyed wine.^[7][2]

Semantic evolution

It was an earthenware or glass jar for keeping food and drink: Columella has pitched and glass ones for preserves, and Persius has white jars swelling with wine and an unbaked pot of green clay that rings false when struck.^[2][7]

Plasterers kept their whitewash in it, hence the proverb duo parietes de eadem fidelia dealbare, to whitewash two walls from the same pot, that is, to gain two ends by one action, in a letter of Curius to Cicero.^[7][8][9] The Old Latin Bible uses it for the jar of meal that will not fail, where the Vulgate has hydria.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it in the Aulularia.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – A letter of Curius in Cicero's correspondence has the whitewash proverb.^[7][8]
• 1st century AD – Columella uses it for storage jars.^[2][5]
• 34–62 AD – Persius uses it of wine jars.^[7][2][5]
• after 220 AD – The Old Latin Bible uses it for a jar of meal.^[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. An earthenware pot or jar, a large pail.^[3][7]
2. A pail of whitewash.^[7][8]

Usage notes

De eadem fidelia duos parietes dealbare (“to whitewash two walls from the same pot”) is the Latin counterpart of “to kill two birds with one stone”.^[7][8]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
5. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
9. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier