inguen

Forms

inguen n (genitive inguinis); third declension^[1] Late Latin also has a feminine inguina, -ae (Isidore).^[2][3] A spelling with ig- occurs in the veterinary writer Chiron.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *n̥gwen-, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *n̥gʷ-ēn (“the naked one”), an ⟨n⟩-stem from the root of nūdus (“naked”).^[5] It is cognate with Ancient Greek ἀδήν (adḗn, “gland”),^[5][6][1][4] which de Vaan keeps with the Latin word because both “gland” and “groin” can come from “naked”.^[5] Schrijver and Beekes instead separate the Greek word and compare North Germanic words for a swelling such as Icelandic økkr (“gland, tumour”); de Vaan rejects this.^[5] Köbler gives the root as Proto-Indo-European *engʷ- (“swelling, groin”) (Pokorny 319).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Lucilius,^[5][7] who uses it of a swelling in the groin: “lest a bubo appear”.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The OLD's first sense is the swelling, a bubo, and other swellings on the body.^[6] From Virgil on it is the groin itself, as where a spear pierces a man's left groin,^[6] singular or more often plural.^[2] It also names the genitals, of Priapus in the Copa and in Horace and Juvenal.^[6] Pliny the Elder uses it of the place on a reed where a branch joins the stem.^[6]

Church Latin has it for the groin, also as the feminine inguina.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 180–102 BC – Lucilius of a bubo.^[6][7]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of the groin.^[6][7]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder of the joint of a branch.^[6][7]
• c. 560–636 AD – Isidore has the feminine inguina.^[2][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A swelling in the groin, bubo; other swellings on the body.^[6]
2. The groin.^[6][2][1][3]
3. The genitals.^[6][1]
4. The place where a branch joins the stem of a plant.^[6]

Word family

• inguinālis

Related words

• nūdus

References

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