glaucoma

Forms

glaucōma n (genitive glaucōmatis); third declension^[1] Plautus has a first-declension feminine form, accusative glaucūmam.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek γλαύκωμα (glaúkōma),^[2][3][4][1] a noun that Wiktionary derives from γλαυκόω (glaukóō).^[1] Etymonline suggests that it may come from a Greek word for “grey-eyed”, formed from ὄμμα (ómma, “eye”) and γλαυκός (glaukós), an adjective of uncertain origin.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus (c. 250–184 BC) has it once, in the Miles gloriosus (148), in the comic phrase “to throw a glaucūma before someone's eyes”, that is, to throw dust in their eyes.^[3][4][2]

Semantic evolution

In medicine it named a clouding of the eye, a cataract: Pliny the Elder uses it so,^[2][3][4] and later Prudentius and the veterinary work of Vegetius.^[4][3] Late medical texts and glossaries spell it claucoma or laucoma.^[6][7] Old High German glosses render it with words for blindness and spots on the eye.^[7]

English borrowed it in the 1640s; cataract and glaucoma were not told apart until about 1705.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it figuratively in the Miles gloriosus.^[2][3][7]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it for a disease of the eye.^[3][4][7]
• 348/49–c. 413 AD – Prudentius has it in the Hamartigenia.^[3][4][7]
• c. 400 AD – Vegetius uses it in his veterinary work.^[4][7]
• 1640s – Borrowed into English as glaucoma.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (medicine) A cataract, a clouding of the eye.^[2][3][4]
2. (figurative) A deception that blinds, “dust in the eyes”.^[3][4]

Related words

• English glaucoma

References

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