insomnium

Forms

īnsomnium n (genitive īnsomniī or īnsomnī); second declension^[1][2]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- (“not”) + somnus (“sleep”) + -ium, which gives the sense “sleeplessness”;^[1][3] in the sense “dream” it was understood as ⟨in⟩ “in” with somnium (“dream”), on the model of Ancient Greek ἐνύπνιον (enúpnion, “dream”).^[1] Georges keeps the two apart as separate words, the “dream” word formed after the Greek,^[3] and the TLL explains it as made from the phrase ⟨in somnīs⟩ “in sleep” after the Greek, filing the uses meaning “sleeplessness” under īnsomnia.^[4]

somnus goes back to Proto-Italic *swopno- and Proto-Indo-European *suépno- (“sleep”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD and Conte first cite it from Cicero,^[1][6] who in On Old Age says that old age is spared drunkenness, indigestion and sleepless nights (vīnulentiā et cruditāte et īnsomniīs).^[1]

Semantic evolution

In the sense “dream” it is first found twice in Virgil's Aeneid,^[4] where Dido asks her sister Anna what dreams (quae īnsomnia) terrify her as she lies sleepless, and where the shades send false dreams up to the sky.^[4] It then appears in Ovid, Seneca and Pliny the Elder,^[4] who reports that bean porridge was thought to cause dreams, while Cato said boiled cabbage took away sleeplessness.^[4][3] The plural is usual; the singular is found in Tacitus and later writers.^[4][7]

Servius explains īnsomnium as what is seen in sleep,^[4] and Macrobius makes the īnsomnium, the Greek enhypnion, one of his kinds of dreams, the kind that has no truth in it.^[4] Both senses lived on in medieval Latin: Bede and Anselm use it of sleeplessness, and other writers list it among the kinds of dream and vision.^[8] It survives in Italian insogno and Spanish ensueño.^[4]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses the plural of sleepless nights.^[1][9]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of dreams in the Aeneid.^[4][1][9]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of both dreams and sleeplessness.^[4][3][9]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus uses the singular for a dream.^[7][9]
• first half of the 5th century AD – Macrobius treats it as a kind of dream without truth.^[4][9]
• second half of the 11th century–1109 – Anselm of Canterbury uses it of sleeplessness.^[8][9]

Meanings

Noun

1. (usually plural) Sleeplessness, wakefulness.^[1][6][8]
2. (usually plural) A dream, a vision seen in sleep.^[1][7][3]

Related words

• somnus
• īnsomnis
• īnsomnia

Usage notes

Döderlein notes that somnium is the prose word for a dream, while īnsomnium, like Greek enhypnion, belongs to poetry.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
3. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ 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 Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
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
9. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
10. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper