Etymologically
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hamatus

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [haːˈmaː.tʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [aˈmaː.tus][1]

Forms

hāmātus (feminine hāmāta, neuter hāmātum); first/second-declension adjective[1] Lucretius' manuscripts spell it amātus.[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin hāmus (“hook”) + -ātus.[3][1][2] De Vaan finds no etymology for hāmus: only Ancient Greek χαμός (khamós, “curved”) and χαβός (khabós) come close, but their variation is unexplained and a loan would not account for the long vowel of the Latin word.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler record it first in Lucretius,[4][5] who has it several times in his second book.[2]

Semantic evolution

It means furnished with hooks, or barbed: Cicero writes of things made of rough, smooth, hooked and barbed bodies,[3][6] Ovid uses it of claws, of a barbed arrow and of thorny brambles,[6] and a poem in the Tibullan collection of brambles that scratch the legs.[3] It also means hook-shaped, as Ovid's hāmātus ēnsis, a curved sword.[3][6] Medieval Latin used it of armour made of rings, with reference to Virgil.[7] Köbler records it in Albertus Magnus and in the Waltharius.[5]

Timeline

  • 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it.[2][5]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of hooked bodies.[3][5]
  • 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of claws, arrows and a curved sword.[6][5]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Furnished with hooks, hooked; of arrows, barbed; of bushes, thorny.[3][6]
  2. Hook-shaped, crooked.[3][6][1]
  3. (Medieval Latin) Made of rings, of chain mail.[7]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  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. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill