focaris

Forms

focāris (neuter focāre); third-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin focus (“hearth, fireplace”) + -āris.^[2][1][3] The TLL compares focārius and lists with it, after Meyer-Lübke, Romance words such as Italian focajo, French foyer and Spanish hogar.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Isidore of Seville says that the common people call a kind of pyrites, which gives sparks when struck with iron or stone, focaris petra, “hearth stone”.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

The phrase lapis focaris named flint.^[1] Medieval French–Latin glossaries render focaris as a gunflint and as a stone full of fire.^[4] In Poland it was a noun, focaris or focare, “flint”, glossed with Polish crzemyen.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 560–636 AD – Isidore of Seville records focaris petra as the popular name of a stone that gives sparks.^[2][3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of the hearth or fire.^[1][3]
2. In lapis or petra focaris: flint.^[1][4]

Noun

1. (Medieval Latin) Flint.^[5][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
2. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ a b c d du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre
5. ^ a b Lexicon mediae et infimae Latinitatis Polonorum (1953–), Kraków: Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN; electronic ed. elexicon.scriptores.pl