hortulus

Forms

hortulus m (genitive hortulī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin hortus (“garden”) + -ulus, a diminutive.^[2][3][1] De Vaan traces hortus to Proto-Italic *χorto- and Proto-Indo-European *gh(o)r-to- (“enclosure”).^[4] Cognate with Oscan húrz (“enclosure”), Ancient Greek χόρτος (khórtos, “enclosed place, feeding place”) and Old Irish gort (“field”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus wrote a play called Hortulus, known from Festus,^[3][5] and the word is otherwise found from Cicero and Catullus on.^[3] Matius speaks of manuring his little gardens: meos hortulos plus stercoro … quam holero.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the singular it is a small garden, as Catullus' flower in a rich master's garden or Juvenal's little garden with a shallow well.^[2] Columella uses it of a plot into which a vineyard is divided.^[2][6] In the plural, hortulī are pleasure grounds or a small park: Cicero has someone who wants to buy hortulos to enjoy himself without callers.^[2][6] It was also the garden where a philosopher taught: Cicero recalls hortulī that bring Plato before his eyes,^[2] and says that Epicurus watered his gardens from the springs of Democritus, that is, took his ideas from him.^[2][7] Suetonius names the collis hortulōrum, the hill of gardens later called the Pincian.^[6] In medieval British Latin it is a small garden, also used figuratively.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – A play of Plautus is called Hortulus.^[3][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of pleasure grounds and of philosophers' gardens.^[2][5]
• 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus, of a small garden.^[2][5]
• 1st century AD – Columella, of a plot of a vineyard.^[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A little garden.^[2][7][1]
2. A plot, a subdivision of a vineyard.^[2][6]
3. (plural) Pleasure grounds, gardens, a small park.^[2][6]
4. A garden where a philosopher taught;^[2] (figurative) a philosopher's teaching.^[2]

Word family

• hortulānus

Related words

• hortus
• cohors

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b 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 d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
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