gibbus

Forms

gibbus (feminine gibba, neuter gibbum); first/second-declension adjective^[1] As a noun it is gibbus, gibbī, masculine, of the second declension.^[2][3] Suetonius has a feminine noun gibba in the same sense.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is from Latin gibber (“hump-backed; hump”) according to de Vaan and Wiktionary, who treat it under that word;^[5][1] the OLD instead sets up an earlier *gibus and only compares the two.^[2] De Vaan notes that Latin ⟨gibb-⟩ can continue an earlier ⟨*gīb-⟩, an interchange found in many words for bodily defects.^[5]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *gīfri- (“hump”) and *gīfro- (“hump-backed”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *geibh-.^[5] He compares Lithuanian geibùs (“gawky, plump”) and geĩbti (“to become weak”), and Norwegian dialectal keiv (“slanted, wrong”), but finds the meanings not identical and the forms so restricted that the etymology remains very uncertain.^[5] Some scholars, the TLL reports, have taken it as a borrowing of Ancient Greek κυφός (kuphós, “bent, bowed”) with the consonant doubled as in pet forms;^[6][3] Lewis and Short compare that word and κύπτω (kúptō, “to bend forward”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The adjective first appears in Celsus,^[5][7] who describes the skull as hollow on the inside and gibba, bulging, on the outside.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Latin the adjective meant convex or bulging,^[2][4] the opposite of hollow,^[4] while the noun named a hump or lump on the body, first in Juvenal.^[5][3][4] By metonymy it could stand for a hunchback, as in Lampridius.^[4] The TLL notes that in Ambrose's Hexameron the sense of deformity is absent.^[6]

In British medieval Latin the adjective meant protuberant and the noun a lump or swelling on the body, also on the liver;^[8][6] Old English glossaries render it hofer.^[8][6] English took gibbous “bulging, convex” from it around 1400.^[9]

Timeline

• 14–37 AD – Celsus uses the adjective of the outer, convex side of the skull.^[3][4][7]
• c. 67–c. 127 AD – Juvenal uses the noun for a hump.^[3][4][7]
• c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius has the feminine gibba for a hump.^[3][7]
• c. 340–397 AD – Ambrose uses it without the sense of deformity.^[6][7]
• c. 1400 – English borrows it as gibbous.^[9]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Bulging, protuberant, convex.^[2][4]
2. Humped, hunched.^[3][1]

Noun

1. A hump, a lump or protuberance on the body.^[2][3][4]
2. (metonymic) A hunchback.^[4]
3. (Medieval Latin) A swelling, also one on the liver.^[8]

Word family

• gibbōsus
• gibba

Related words

• gibber
• English gibbous

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
5. ^ a b c d e f de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
8. ^ a b c 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
9. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com