insicium

Forms

insicium n (genitive insiciī or insicī); second declension^[1] Varro has a feminine insicia.^[2][3] Also spelled īsicium, īsicia and īssicium, and mostly ēsicium in Apicius.^[4][5][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin in-¹ + secō (“to cut”) + -ium.^[1] Wiktionary derives it from insecō¹ (“to cut up”), the spelling ⟨īsicium⟩ showing the loss of /n/ before a fricative, with lengthening of the vowel.^[4]

Ancient grammarians explained it the same way: Varro derived ⟨insicia⟩ from cut-up meat, and Macrobius from ⟨insectio⟩ “cutting into”; the glosses also linked it with ensis (“sword”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Varro (116–27 BC), in De lingua Latina, has insicia, minced meat.^[2][3][5]

Semantic evolution

It was a delicate dish of finely chopped meat, later also of fish, formed into a shape.^[3] Apicius gives recipes for it,^[3] and Macrobius calls it hard to digest.^[3] In Medieval Latin it also meant stuffed meat or a sausage.^[4]

Greek borrowed it as ἰσίκιον (isíkion),^[4] and a Latin–Greek gloss equates the two.^[6] Italian ciccia “meat” continues it.^[4]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro explains the name insicia.^[2][3][5]
• 4th century AD – Apicius gives recipes for it.^[3][5]
• first half of the 5th century AD – Macrobius calls it hard to digest.^[3][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Forcemeat, minced meat; a rissole.^[1][2][4]
2. (Medieval Latin) Stuffed meat, a sausage.^[4]

Word family

• īnsiciātus

References

1. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ Goetz, Georg (1888–1923), Corpus glossariorum Latinorum, Leipzig: Teubner; vols. VI–VII Thesaurus glossarum emendatarum, digital ed. CGLO, Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften