granarium

Forms

grānārium n (genitive grānāriī or grānārī); second declension^[1] It is usually plural, grānāria.^[2][3] Medieval spellings include forms beginning with gre- and ger-.^[4]

Etymology

It is from Latin grānum + -ārium.^[5][1] The noun grānum (“grain”) goes back to Proto-Italic *grāno- and Proto-Indo-European *ǵrh2-no- (“which has ripened, fruit, grain”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has it first, in the Truculentus, for a granary.^[3][7][8]

Semantic evolution

It kept the one sense of a storehouse for grain throughout Latin.^[5][4] Varro, who also has the singular, advises keeping wheat in raised granaries through which the wind can blow,^[2] and Columella, Pliny the Elder, Vitruvius, Palladius, Cicero, Horace and Persius also use the word.^[2]

It lives on in Italian granaio.^[7] English borrowed the plural as granary in the 1560s, and had earlier taken garner in the late 12th century from Old French, which goes back to this word.^[9]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it in the Truculentus.^[3][7][8]
• 234–149 BC – Cato mentions granaries in his work on farming.^[7][8]
• 116–27 BC – Varro advises on building granaries.^[2][8]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses the plural.^[2][3][8]
• late 12th century – English takes garner through Old French.^[9]
• 1560s – English borrows the plural as granary.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A granary, a storehouse for grain (usually in the plural).^[5][2]

Related words

• English granary
• English garner

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon 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 Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
5. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b c d 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
9. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com