helcium

Forms

helcium n (genitive helciī or helcī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek ἑλκίον (helkíon, “yoke”),^[1][2] from ἕλκω (hélkō, “to draw, drag”),^[3][4] which Köbler traces to Proto-Indo-European *selk- (“to pull”).^[4] The OLD only compares the Greek verb.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Apuleius,^[4] in the Metamorphoses, where the narrator, an ass, is freed from a machine when the rope harness is taken off: helcio sparteo dimoto.^[6][5]

Semantic evolution

The dictionaries define it differently: the OLD as a rope for towing or hauling, Lewis & Short and Georges as a yoke or horse collar, and the TLL as a drawing strap.^[5][2][7][6] It reappears in a 16th-century Polish glossary, glossed with Polish chomąto (“horse collar”).^[8]

Wiktionary lists Italian alzaia and Old French halcier, the source of English hawser, among its descendants,^[1] while Etymonline derives the Old French word from Late Latin altāre (“to make high”).^[9]

Timeline

• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius uses it twice, of an ass's harness.^[6][5][4]
• 16th century – A Polish glossary glosses it as chomąto.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A rope for towing or hauling, a drawing strap.^[5][6][10]
2. A yoke, horse collar.^[2][7][11]

Word family

• helciārius

Related words

• helcia

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
4. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d e Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b Lexicon mediae et infimae Latinitatis Polonorum (1953–), Kraków: Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN; electronic ed. elexicon.scriptores.pl
9. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
11. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.