hirudo

Forms

hirūdō f (genitive hirūdinis); third declension^[1] Glossaries also have hirūgō and (h)erūgō, and manuscripts often confuse the word with hirundō (“swallow”).^[2]

Etymology

The origin is unknown.^[3][4][1] Earlier etymological dictionaries see in it the suffix of testūdō (“tortoise”), which comes from testū (“pot”), but no stem ⟨hiru-⟩ is known;^[3] the TLL nevertheless assumes one.^[2] De Vaan notes that ⟨haru-⟩ “intestines”, perhaps found in haruspex, and hīra (“intestine”) would fit in meaning, intestines having the same worm-like shape as leeches, but cannot be united with ⟨hiru-⟩ in one reconstruction; if they are related, they are almost certainly loanwords from a non-Indo-European language.^[3] Stifter suggests a link with Old Irish giritán (“periwinkle”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus on,^[3][4] meaning a leech: in the Epidicus a speaker threatens to turn into a leech and suck out blood (ego me convortam in hirudinem atque exsugebo sanguinem).^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

It was used figuratively of anything that drains: Cicero calls the hungry rabble of the assemblies “the leech of the treasury” (illa contionalis hirudo aerarii).^[6][5] In the Ars poetica Horace has the leech that will not let go of the skin until it is full of blood (non missura cutem, nisi plena cruoris, hirudo).^[5] Celsus, Columella and Pliny the Elder use it too,^[2][7] and Pliny remarks that the leech was beginning to be called sanguisūga in common speech.^[2]

In Medieval Latin it kept the sense “leech”, and Osbern of Gloucester derived it from haereō (“to cling”).^[8] A form of it survives in Provençal.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of a leech sucking blood.^[5][6][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it figuratively of the rabble.^[6][4]
• 65–8 BC – Horace uses it in the Ars poetica.^[5][4]
• 14–37 AD – Celsus uses it in medicine.^[2][4]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder notes the popular name sanguisuga.^[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A leech.^[9][5]
2. (figurative) A person or thing that drains, a bloodsucker.^[5][6]

Related words

• haruspex
• hīra
• sanguisūga

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ 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
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press