historia

Pronunciation

• IPA (Classical): [hɪsˈtɔ.ri.a]^[1]
• IPA (Ecclesiastical): [isˈtɔː.ri.a]^[1]

Forms

historia f (genitive historiae); first declension^[1] Medieval spellings include istoria, storia and hystoria.^[1][2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek ἱστορία (historía, “inquiry; narrative of what is learnt”), from Ancient Greek ἱστορέω (historéō, “to inquire, learn by research”), from Ancient Greek ἵστωρ (hístōr, “one who knows, a judge”).^[1][3][4][5] Servius and Isidore of Seville explained the Greek word as “to see or know”, since the ancients only wrote the history of what they had seen.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Plautus,^[2] in whose Menaechmi a character says they may as well go home “unless we mean to write a history”, while satis historiarum est means “enough of stories”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It kept the Greek sense of inquiry or research, as in Cicero's remark that Chrysippus was curious “in all research”, and so meant an account of investigations, the historia naturalis of Pliny, and the points of knowledge a grammarian expounds.^[3][7] Its main sense was a written account of past events and the writing of history, whose first law, Cicero says, is to dare say nothing false; he calls Herodotus the father of history and history itself “the witness of time, the light of truth, the life of memory, the teacher of life”.^[3][5] Rhetoricians distinguished historia, a narrative of real events, from fabula and argumentum, and in Plautus already it meant simply a story.^[3]

Medieval writers used it for the literal sense of Scripture as opposed to allegory, for the historical books of the Old Testament read in church and, by extension, for the Bible, for a rhymed office of the Hours, and for a picture or design.^[8][2] In England a narrative frieze on a wall gave the word the sense of a storey of a building, historia clara being the upper storey or clerestory, whence English storey.^[1][2] Neo-Latin writers use it for a field of knowledge.^[9] It survives as French histoire and Italian storia, and Old French estoire and historie carried it on into English.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of writing history and of stories.^[3][2]
• 234–149 BC – Cato uses it of a written history.^[3][2]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero states the first law of history and calls history the teacher of life.^[3][5][2]
• c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian classes historia among the kinds of narrative.^[3][2]
• c. 165 AD – Gellius uses it of knowledge gained from books.^[3][2]
• 639–709 AD – Aldhelm uses it of Pliny's natural history.^[10][2]
• 13th century – In England it means a storey of a building.^[2][1]

Meanings

Noun

1. Inquiry, research, and an account of investigations, a description, or in the plural points of knowledge.^[3][7]
2. A written account of past events, a history; the writing of history.^[3][5]
3. (rhetoric) A narrative of real events.^[3]
4. The recorded knowledge of the past.^[3]
5. A story, a narrative.^[3]
6. (Medieval Latin) The literal sense of Scripture; the historical books of the Old Testament; a rhymed office.^[8][2]
7. (Medieval Latin) A picture, a design; a narrative frieze; a storey of a building.^[8][1][2]

Word family

• historialis
• historicus

Related words

• English history
• English story
• English storey

Usage notes

Döderlein, following Isidore, distinguishes historiae, the history of the author's own times, from annālēs, a history of former ages compiled from documents.^[11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
5. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ 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 c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
9. ^ Ramminger, Johann, Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700, www.neulatein.de
10. ^ Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
11. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper