horreum

Forms

horreum n (genitive horreī); second declension^[1] A feminine horrea is reported for the orator Calidius.^[2] Inscriptions also spell it horeum.^[3]

Etymology

It has no agreed etymology.^[4][3][5] De Vaan tentatively derives it from ⟨*ǵʰr-so-⟩ “enclosed”, from the root Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰer- (“to grab”) of hortus and cohors.^[4] Wiktionary mentions a link with hordeum (“barley”).^[1] Festus explained it as ⟨farreum⟩, from far (“emmer wheat”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler date it from Plautus,^[4][5] whose prologue in the Menaechmi promises to measure out the plot “not by the peck, but by the granary itself”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is a storehouse for grain, a barn or granary, and Cicero calls Capua the granary of the Campanian land.^[2][6] It is also a store for other goods, as Horace's wine jar taken down from the storeroom.^[2]

Church Latin glosses it “barn, storehouse, granary”.^[7] British medieval sources also use it of a hay barn and of the tithe barn, and figuratively after the Gospel image of the wheat gathered into the barn.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a granary.^[2][4][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero calls Capua the granary of Campania.^[2][5]
• 65–8 BC – Horace of a wine store.^[2][5]
• Middle Ages – Of a tithe barn.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A storehouse for grain, granary, barn; a town or region that supplies grain.^[2][6][1]
2. A store for other goods, storehouse, magazine.^[2][6]
3. (Medieval Latin) horreum decimale, a tithe barn.^[8]

Related words

• hordeum

References

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