glaesum

Forms

glaesum n (genitive glaesī); second declension^[1] It is also spelled glēsum.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is a Germanic word: Pliny the Elder says that the Germans call amber by this name, and Tacitus that the Aestii, who gather it in the shallows and on the shore, do.^[4][5] Wiktionary takes it as borrowed from Proto-Germanic *glasą.^[1] The Oxford Latin Dictionary sets up Proto-Indo-European *ghlēso- and compares Old High German glas, Old English glæs and the English word glare;^[2] Köbler connects it with the root *ǵʰel- (“to shine, gleam”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It appears first in Pliny the Elder, in the 1st century AD, as the Germans' name for amber: “it is certain that amber forms on the islands of the northern ocean and that the Germans call it glaesum”.^[4][6]

Semantic evolution

It stayed a foreign word, used by Pliny and Tacitus for the amber of the northern coasts;^[5][3] the ordinary Latin word for amber was sucinum, which the TLL gives as its meaning.^[4] Pliny also calls the amber islands of the North Sea glaesāriae, with the derived adjective glaesārius.^[5][3]

Timeline

• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder names amber glaesum as a German word.^[4][6]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus, in the Germania, says the Aestii call amber glesum.^[4][5][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. Amber.^[2][5][3]

Word family

• glaesārius

Related words

• sucinum
• English glass

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de