histrio

Forms

histriō m (genitive histriōnis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Etruscan hister (“actor”), extended with the suffix -iō: Livy and Valerius Maximus report ⟨hister⟩ as the Etruscan word for an actor.^[2][3][4][1] Wiktionary calls the further origin unknown.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Plautus,^[4] whose prologues speak of actors and who mentions a word an actor said on stage.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It is a stage actor, tragic or comic: Cicero says no one would think a good comedian could come from the worst actor, and Pliny the Elder names Aesopus, an actor of tragedies.^[3] Under the Empire it is above all a performer of pantomime, in Petronius, Tacitus and Juvenal, who says an actor will give what the nobles will not.^[2][3] Celsus uses it for a boaster: it is the actor's way to make much of a small thing.^[3]

Church Latin has it for a stage player, actor.^[5] In Medieval Latin it is a jongleur or a court jester.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of actors.^[3][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of a bad actor.^[3][4]
• before 66 AD – Petronius of a pantomime.^[2][4]
• c. 67–c. 127 AD – Juvenal of a rich actor.^[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. An actor, stage player.^[2][3][1][5]
2. A performer of pantomime.^[2]
3. (figurative) A boaster.^[3]
4. (Medieval Latin) A jongleur; a court jester.^[6]

Word family

• histriculus
• histriōnālis
• histriōnicus
• histriōnius

Related words

• lūdius
• actor

Usage notes

Döderlein says actor, cōmoedus and tragoedus present the player as a respectable artist, lūdiō and lūdius as one who acts for a living, and histriō mostly carries a notion of buffoonery and boasting.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
6. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
7. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper