hordeaceus

Forms

hordeāceus (feminine hordeācea, neuter hordeāceum); first/second-declension adjective^[1] It is also spelled ordeāceus, hordiāceus and hordeācius.^[2] The Old Latin Bible and some manuscripts of the Vulgate have the spellings without ⟨h-⟩ and in ⟨-cius⟩.^[3]

Etymology

It is from Latin hordeum (“barley”) + -āceus.^[2][1][3] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *χor(s)d-ejo- (“barley”) for hordeum, with a dialect form ⟨fordeum⟩ whose ⟨f-⟩ is probably hypercorrect.^[4] He connects it with Old High German gersta (“barley”), Ancient Greek κριθή (krithḗ, “barley”) and perhaps Hittite karaš- (“wheat, emmer”), but finds it hard to derive them all from one form.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler and de Vaan date it from Cato,^[5][4] whose farm manual mentions the chaff of wheat and of barley.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

It means of barley or made from barley.^[2][6] Varro mentions barley flour, Celsus says barley bread loosens the bowels, and Pliny the Elder writes of barley straw and the barley harvest.^[2][6] Columella has hordeācea pira, pears that ripen at the time of the barley harvest,^[6][3] and Apuleius uses it of ears of barley.^[2]

The Vulgate has the barley harvest in Judith and a barley cake in Ezekiel,^[3] and Isidore of Seville defines farrāgō as a barley plant that is still green.^[3] Church Latin kept the sense “of barley”.^[7]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato mentions barley chaff.^[2][5]
• 116–27 BC – Varro mentions barley flour.^[2][5]
• 14–37 AD – Celsus writes of barley bread.^[2][5]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder writes of the barley harvest.^[2][5]
• c. 560–636 AD – Isidore of Seville uses it to define farrāgō.^[3][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of barley, made from barley.^[2][6]
2. Ripening at the time of the barley harvest (of pears).^[6][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson