fultura

Forms

fultūra f (genitive fultūrae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin fulciō (“to prop up”) + -tūra, a noun of action.^[1][2][3] The origin of fulciō is unclear: it is often connected with Ancient Greek φάλαγξ (phálanx, “beam”) and Old High German balko (“beam”), but de Vaan finds the link in meaning unclear and the suffixes mismatched.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Vitruvius,^[5] who writes of a strong flow of water that undermined the props, supplantāvit fultūrās.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It names a prop, stay or support, and the act of propping up.^[2][6] Columella has foundations serving as support and substructure, and Seneca writes that the shoring up of a building is hired cheaply.^[6][2] Horace uses it figuratively of a hearty meal as a prop for a failing stomach, ingēns accēdit stomachō fultūra ruentī.^[6][7] Lewis and Short think it perhaps not found before Augustus.^[6]

Jerome explains a Hebrew name as meaning bases, or fultūrae.^[3] In British medieval Latin it meant a structural support or buttress, and an Old English gloss renders it fotstan;^[8] Bede uses it of the bases of a man's feet in Acts.^[8] A 16th-century Cambridge record calls buttresses fultūrae.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 84–c. 25 BC – Vitruvius uses it of props undermined by water.^[2][5]
• 65–8 BC – Horace uses it figuratively of food that props up the stomach.^[6][5]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it of shoring up buildings.^[2][5]
• 16th century – A Cambridge record says that buttresses are called fultūrae.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. The propping or shoring up of buildings.^[2]
2. A prop, stay, support; also figuratively, a strengthening.^[2][6]
3. (Medieval Latin) A structural support, buttress.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. ^ 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 d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d e Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press