fonticulus

Forms

fonticulus m (genitive fonticulī); second declension^[1][2]

Etymology

It is from Latin fōns (“spring, fountain”) + -culus, a diminutive.^[1][3][2] The base goes back to Proto-Italic *fonti- and Proto-Indo-European *dʰonh₂-ti- (“flowing”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in Horace's Satires: “magno de flumine malim quam ex hoc fonticulo tantundem sumere” (“I would rather draw as much from a great river than from this little spring”).^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

Lewis and Short call it very rare;^[2] Vitruvius and Pliny the Elder use it, Pliny of a sweet spring leaping up.^[3][2] Grammarians list it among the diminutives, and some manuscripts have the syncopated fonticlus.^[3] Medieval writers kept it: Hrotsvit writes of a little spring flowing out clear as glass, and Albertus Magnus uses it too.^[6][5]

Timeline

• 65–8 BC – Horace uses it in the Satires.^[3][5]
• AD 23/24–79 – Pliny the Elder uses it of a sweet spring.^[2][5]
• 3rd quarter of the 10th century – Hrotsvit uses it of a clear spring.^[6][5]
• 13th century – Albertus Magnus uses it.^[6][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small spring or fountain.^[1][2][6]

References

1. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften