Etymologically
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fornax

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈfɔr.naːks][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈfɔr.naks][1]

Forms

fornāx f (genitive fornācis); third declension[1] It is also spelled furnax.[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin fornus (“oven”) + -āx.[1][4] De Vaan traces fornus, usually furnus, to Proto-Italic *χworno- and Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰr-no- (“heat; oven”).[4] Cognate with Old Irish gorn (“fire”) and Sanskrit घृण (ghṛṇá-, “heat, glow”).[4][2] Nonius derived it from formus (“warm”).[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler date it from Cato,[4][5] who describes how to build a lime kiln.[2][6]

Semantic evolution

It is a furnace, oven or kiln: for heating baths, for smelting metal, as Lucretius' hot iron hissing when taken from the furnace, for burning lime, as in Cato, and for firing clay, as Pliny the Elder's clay chariot that grew in the kiln.[2] Cicero mentions creatures said to live in burning furnaces.[2] In poetry it is used of thunderclouds and volcanoes, as Lucretius' flames rolled in hollow furnaces within the clouds.[2] Ovid makes it a goddess of ovens, probably inferred from the festival of the Fornacalia.[2][4] Church Latin glosses it oven, furnace.[7] English furnace (early 13th century) comes from it through Old French.[8]

Timeline

  • 234–149 BC – Cato of a lime kiln.[2][5]
  • 96–55 BC – Lucretius of smelting furnaces and of thunderclouds.[2][5]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of burning furnaces.[2][5]
  • 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid of a goddess of ovens.[2][5]
  • early 13th century – English furnace comes from it through Old French.[8]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A furnace, oven, kiln, for baths, smelting, lime or pottery.[2][6][7][1]
  2. (poetic) Of thunderclouds and volcanoes, a furnace of fire.[2]
  3. (mythology) A goddess of ovens.[2]

Word family

  • Fornācālis
  • fornācārius
  • fornācātor
  • fornācula
  • furnāceus
  • furnus
  • Fornacalia
  • English furnace

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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 c d e 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  6. ^ a b 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