hamus

Forms

hāmus m (genitive hāmī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

The origin is unknown.^[2][3][4][5] De Vaan notes that only Ancient Greek χαμός (khamós, “curved”) and χαβός (khabós, “curved”) come close in form and meaning, but the variation within Greek is unexplained and the Latin long vowel rules out a borrowing.^[2] Wiktionary mentions a possible link with Proto-Germanic *hamô (“collar, harness, fishnet”).^[1] Lewis & Short compared Ancient Greek ἅπτω (háptō, “to fasten”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus,^[2] whose fishermen in the Rudens say that these hooks and rods are their living.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It means a hook in general, as Lucretius' little rings and hooks, Caesar's iron hooks fixed in buried stakes, and the hooks of Virgil's chain mail.^[3][6] It also means something hook-shaped, as the curved claws in Ovid, and above all a fish-hook.^[3] Ovid also uses it of the barb of an arrow.^[3] Church Latin glosses it hook, fish-hook.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of fishermen's hooks.^[3][2][5]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius of linked rings and hooks.^[3][5]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar of iron hooks in stakes.^[6][5]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid of curved claws and of an arrow's barb.^[3][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hook; something hook-shaped.^[3][6][1]
2. A fish-hook.^[3][7][1]
3. The barb of an arrow.^[3][1]

Word family

• hāmātus
• hāmotrahō
• hāmulus
• adhāmō
• hāmiformis
• hāmiōta
• hāmōsus

Usage notes

Isidore derived amicus “friend” from hamus, as if a friend were bound by a hook, the chain of love.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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. ^ a b 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson