imbrex

Forms

imbrex f or m (genitive imbricis); third declension^[1] It is feminine in Plautus and Cato and masculine in Pliny the Elder.^[2] Glossaries also spell it imbrix, with plurals such as imperges and infrices.^[3]

Etymology

It is from Latin imber (“rain”),^[2][4][3] with the suffix -ex, so named because these tiles carried off the rainwater.^[1] De Vaan explains it from ⟨*imbri-k-s⟩; the vowel ⟨e⟩ is irregular for ⟨*-ix⟩, but the suffix is easily due to analogy, since many nouns in ⟨-ex⟩, ⟨-ix⟩ are technical words, such as apex and fornix.^[5] The noun imber goes back to Proto-Italic *n̥fr-i- (“cloud”) and Proto-Indo-European *nbh-r-o- (“(rain) cloud”).^[5]

Isidore of Seville explained the name the same way: the tiles are named from the rain because they receive it.^[4][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has it first, in the Miles Gloriosus, for the curved tiles of a roof: a character complains that his imbricēs and flat tiles (tēgulae) have been broken.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

The imbrex was the half-cylindrical tile laid over the joints between the flat roof tiles.^[2][4] From its shape the name passed to other curved things: Cato uses it for curved iron plates in a bearing, Martial apparently for a cut of pork,^[2] and Suetonius, in his life of Nero, for a way of applauding with cupped hands.^[2] It could also mean a gutter or a trough.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it for roof tiles.^[2][6]
• 234–149 BC – Cato uses it for curved iron plates.^[2][6]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it as a masculine.^[2][6]
• 40–102/103 AD – Martial seems to use it of a cut of pork.^[2][6]
• c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius names a kind of applause after it.^[2][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A half-cylindrical roof tile laid over the joints between the flat tiles, a pantile.^[2][4]
2. A curved plate forming part of a bearing.^[2]
3. (perhaps) A fillet of pork.^[2]
4. A way of applauding with hollowed hands.^[2]
5. A gutter; a trough.^[1]

Word family

• imbricō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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 Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de