Etymologically
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halos

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈha.ɫoːs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈaː.los][1]

Forms

halōs f (genitive halō); third declension[1] The accusative is ⟨halō⟩.[2][3] The OLD, Lewis & Short and Gaffiot give it as feminine;[2][4][5][3] Georges gives it as masculine.[2][4][5][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek ἅλως (hálōs),[2][1][3][6] which Lewis & Short and Georges gloss as a threshing floor, usually round;[4][3] Georges explains the halo as named after it by metonymy.[4][3] Etymonline gives the Greek word the senses “threshing floor”, “disk of the sun or moon” and “ring of light round the sun or moon”, of unknown origin, and thinks “threshing floor” the original sense, the others coming from its roundness.[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Seneca is its only classical author.[8][6] In the Natural Questions he records that a circle of varied colour, like that of a rainbow, was once seen round the sun: hunc Graecī halō vocant, nōs dīcere corōnam aptissimē possumus, “the Greeks call it halo; we can best call it a crown”.[4][8][2]

Semantic evolution

The native word for the same ring was corōna, as Seneca says.[4][3] Apuleius' On the World has halysis, which Lewis & Short think a corruption of the Greek word.[4][8] In Medieval Latin it also named the ring of light round the head of a holy figure;[1][6] Roger Bacon uses it.[9] English took halo in the 1560s for the ring round the sun or moon, and used it for the light round the head of a holy person from the 1640s.[7]

Timeline

  • 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it of a coloured ring seen round the sun.[8][6]
  • c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius has the form halysis.[4][6]
  • 1560s – English borrows halo “ring of light round the sun or moon”.[7]
  • 1640s – English uses the word of the light round the head of a holy person.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A halo, a ring of light round the sun or moon.[2][4][3][5]
  2. (Medieval Latin) A halo round the head of a holy figure, a nimbus.[1][6]

Usage notes

Gaffiot lists separately Halos or Halus, a town in Thessaly named by Pliny.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f 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 Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ a b c d Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  7. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  8. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  9. ^ Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press