foramen

Forms

forāmen n (genitive forāminis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin forō (“to bore, pierce”) + -men.^[2][1][3] De Vaan traces ⟨forō⟩ to Proto-Italic *foraje/o- and perhaps Proto-Indo-European *bʰorH-ie/o- (“to pierce, strike”), an iterative “to pierce many times, bore”, comparing Lithuanian bárti (“to scold”), Old Church Slavonic брати (brati, “to fight”) and Old High German berjan (“to hit, pound”);^[4] Walde–Hofmann and Pokorny took the verb as derived from a noun.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler date it from Cato.^[4][5] The historian Sisenna writes of a place with “neither gate nor any opening” for a sally.^[6]

Semantic evolution

It is an opening or hole, at first one made by boring.^[2][6] Technical writers use it of the stops of a pipe, the jets of water conduits, sockets, the cells of a honeycomb, and the natural openings of the body, as Celsus' opening of the ear and the two nostrils;^[2] Lucretius uses it of the pores through which a voice passes.^[2]

In Late Latin it is also a cave or opening in general,^[1] and Church Latin has it of the eye of a needle.^[7] English foramen (1670s) is an anatomical borrowing.^[8]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato.^[4][5]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius of pores in matter.^[2][5]
• 14–37 AD – Celsus of openings in the body.^[2][5]
• 1670s – English foramen.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. An aperture, hole or cavity, originally one made by boring.^[2][6][1]
2. The stop of a musical pipe; the outlet of a water pipe; a socket; a cell of a honeycomb.^[2]
3. A natural opening in the body; a pore in matter.^[2]
4. (Ecclesiastical Latin) forāmen acūs, the eye of a needle.^[7][1]

Word family

• forāminātus
• forāminōsus

Related words

• forātus
• forō
• English foramen

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 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 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com