flosculus

Forms

flōsculus m (genitive flōsculī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin flōs (“flower”) + -culus, a diminutive.^[2][3][1] De Vaan traces flōs to Proto-Italic *flōs and Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₃-ōs (“blossoming”), which came to mean “flower”.^[4] He compares Oscan fluusaí, the goddess Flora, and Old Irish bláth (“flower, bloom”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It appears first in Cicero and Catullus.^[2][5] In the De officiis Cicero writes that all pretence soon falls away like little flowers,^[5] and Catullus addresses someone as the “little flower” of the Juventii (o qui flosculus es Iuventiorum).^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

Lewis and Short call it rare but classical.^[5] Literally it is a little flower;^[2][5] Columella uses it of the remains of the blossom on a fruit.^[2][5] Figuratively it is the best or the pride of something, as in Catullus, and Juvenal uses flosculus vitae for youth.^[2][5] In rhetoric it is a flower of speech, an ornament of style: Cicero speaks of plucking such flowers from everywhere, and Quintilian warns young speakers against them.^[5][2] Seneca uses it of a choice excerpt or maxim taken from an author.^[2][5] Apuleius has it of a gleam of colour.^[2] A feminine floscula and a neuter form also occur.^[3][5] In Ecclesiastical Latin it can also mean a tuft or tassel.^[6]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero compares pretence to little flowers that soon fall.^[5][7]
• 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus addresses someone as the flower of the Juventii.^[2][7]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it of choice excerpts from writers.^[2][7]
• c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian uses it of the ornaments of style.^[2][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A little flower, floweret; the remains of the blossom on a fruit.^[2][5]
2. A bright flash or gleam (of colour).^[2]
3. The best or pride of something, the “flower”; the prime of life.^[2][5]
4. A short choice excerpt or maxim from a writer.^[2][5]
5. (rhetoric) An embellishment of style, a flower of speech.^[2][5]
6. (Ecclesiastical Latin) A tuft, tassel.^[6]

Word family

• flōsculē

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b 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 e f g h i j k l m n o Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de