Etymologically
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focaris

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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