Etymologically
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hirudo

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [hɪˈruː.doː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [iˈruː.do][1]

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]

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