Etymologically
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herbaceus

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [hɛrˈbaː.ke.ʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [erˈbaː.t͡ʃe.us][1]

Forms

herbāceus (feminine herbācea, neuter herbāceum); first/second-declension adjective[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin herba (“grass, herbage”) + -āceus, “resembling herbage”.[2][3] The TLL compares adjectives such as rosāceus.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL knows it only from Pliny the Elder,[3] who uses it of things the colour of grass: of the spice amomum he rates the pale kind second, “herbāceum peius, pessimumque candidum”, the grass-green kind worse and the white worst.[3]

Semantic evolution

Pliny applies it to grass-green leaves, to a flower (as opposed to a white one), to an oil and to the mineral chrysocolla.[4] The TLL notes the spelling herbacius in some manuscripts.[3] English took the word in the 17th century as herbaceous.[5]

Timeline

  • 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of leaves, flowers and minerals of a grass-green colour.[3][4][6]
  • 1640s – English borrows it as herbaceous.[5]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Of the colour of grass, grass-green.[2][4]
  2. Grassy, like herbage.[4][3]

Word family

  • herbācium

References

  1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de