gremium

Forms

gremium n (genitive gremiī or gremī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is perhaps inherited from Proto-Italic *gremo-, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *h₂grem- (“to gather”), with an original sense “armload, embrace”; de Vaan marks the reconstruction as doubtful.^[2][1] He compares Sanskrit ग्राम (grā́ma-, “train, troop”), and the OLD and the TLL compare Old Church Slavonic громада (gromada, “heap”), Köbler relates the root to *h₂ger- (“to gather”).^[2][3][4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan gives Plautus as its first author.^[2] Terence has the golden rain that Jupiter sent into Danaë's lap.^[6]

Semantic evolution

It is a person's lap, where a child is held, as Cicero's infant Jupiter sitting in Fortune's lap, and a place where things are carried or kept, as the apple that rolls from a girl's lap in Catullus.^[3][6] Catullus also uses it of the female genitals.^[3] By transfer it is a hollow in the ground, the soil that receives the seed (Cicero), and the interior or heart of a country, as Cicero's Thessalonians “in the lap of our empire”.^[3][6]

Church Latin glosses it “lap”.^[7] In medieval Latin it was also an assembly or congregation, and the nave of a church, in gremiō mātris ecclēsiae is “in the bosom of the Church”.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus.^[2][5]
• 190–159 BC – Terence of Danaë's lap.^[6][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of the heart of a country.^[3][5]
• 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus of an apple falling from a girl's lap.^[3][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The lap, bosom.^[3][1][6]
2. The lap as a place for carrying or keeping things.^[3]
3. (poetic) The female genitals.^[3]
4. The interior, heart (of a country); a hollow, basin.^[3][6]
5. (Medieval Latin) An assembly, congregation; the bosom (of the Church); the nave of a church.^[8]

Related words

• sinus
• cremium

Usage notes

Döderlein distinguishes gremium, the lap formed by the knees of one sitting, a figure of a mother's care, from sinus, the bosom between the breasts, a figure of protection and refuge.^[9] The OLD also lists a gremium that is a spelling of cremium, “firewood”.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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 j k Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
9. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper