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flabellum

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Etymology and origin of the Latin word flabellum

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
190–159 BC Terence, Eunuchus More words from the 2nd century BC
Ultimate origin
Latin flō
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin flō
Latin flābrum
Romanian flaur
Latin flābellum
From the same root
Latin afflō ← flō
Latin cōnflō ← flō
Latin efflo ← flō
Latin flāmen ← flō
Latin flātō ← flō
Latin flātor ← flō
Latin flātus ← flō
Latin īnflō ← flō
Latin perflo ← flō
Latin sufflō ← flō
Spanish hallar ← flō

Pronunciation

  • Classical: [fɫaːˈbɛl.lũː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [flaˈbɛl.lum][1]

Forms

flābellum n (genitive flābellī); second declension[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin flābrum (“breeze, gust”) + -ellum, a diminutive.[2][3][4] flābrum is from flō (“to blow”),[5][1] for which de Vaan gives, with a question mark, the root Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₁- (“to blow”).[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan finds it from Terence on.[5] In the Eunuchus a character is handed a fan with the words cape hoc flabellum, “take this fan”, and told to make a little breeze.[2][4]

Semantic evolution

It was a small hand fan, also used to keep off flies.[2][4][1] Cicero calls a man's tongue the fan of sedition that stirred up a crowd of the poor,[2][4] and Propertius uses the word of the spread feathers of a peacock's tail.[2][6]

In Christian Latin it kept the sense “fan”,[7] and in the Middle Ages it was a fan or fly-whisk used in the liturgy, and also bellows and a weathercock.[8][1] The MLW records it also of a bundle of twigs or a broom, and of a sunshade.[9]

Timeline

  • 190–159 BC – Terence uses it of a hand fan.[2][10]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it figuratively, the fan of sedition.[2][10]
  • 57/46–12 BC – Propertius calls a peacock's spread tail feathers fans.[2][10]
  • 40–102/103 AD – Martial has a woman fanning a man with it.[2][10]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A small fan, a fly-whisk.[2][4]
  2. (figurative) Something that fans or stirs up, as flabellum seditionis.[2][4]
  3. (Ecclesiastical Latin) A liturgical fan.[8][1]
  4. (Medieval Latin) bellows; a weathercock.[8]
  5. (Medieval Latin) A broom or bundle of twigs; a sunshade.[9]

Word family

  • flābellifera
  • flābellō
  • flābellulum
  • English flabellum

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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 c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ 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
  6. ^ Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  8. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
  9. ^ a b Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  10. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
Cite this entry

“Flabellum.” Etymologically, 13 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/la/flabellum. Accessed 14 Nov. 2026.

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