gramen

Forms

grāmen n (genitive grāminis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *grāmen- (“grass”), inherited from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰr̥h₁-mn̥ (“grass”); de Vaan also allows ⟨*ǵʰr̥h₁-s-mn̥-⟩, because of the Germanic word for grass, Gothic 𐌲𐍂𐌰𐍃 (gras, “grass”).^[2][1] He compares Old English grōwan (“to grow”) and Old High German gruoni (“green”).^[2] The OLD and the TLL only compare English grass and German Gras;^[3][4][5] Lewis and Short connected it with a root “to swallow”, as in vorō (“to devour”).^[3][4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan gives Cato as its first author,^[2][6] who tells the farmer to clear a nursery bed of weeds and grasses.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It is grass, in the plural or collectively, as in Cato, Lucretius, Virgil and Horace.^[3][5] It is also any plant or herb, as Virgil's dittany, a herb “not unknown to wild goats”, and especially a magical, healing or poisonous plant, as Virgil's snake “fed on poisonous herbs”.^[3]

Church Latin glosses it “grass, turf”.^[7] English graminivorous, “grass-eating”, is recorded from 1739.^[8]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato of grasses in a nursery bed.^[3][2][6]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of herbs and of poisonous plants.^[3][6]
• 1739 – English graminivorous.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. Grass, turf.^[3][5][1][7]
2. A plant, herb; a magical, healing or poisonous herb.^[3][1]

Word family

• grāmineus
• grāminōsus

Related words

• herba
• caespes
• faenum
• English grass

References

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