Etymologically
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insula

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Pronunciation

  • IPA (Classical): [ˈĩː.sʊ.ɫa][1]
  • IPA (Ecclesiastical): [ˈin.su.la][1]

Forms

īnsula f (genitive īnsulae); first declension[1]

Etymology

The origin is disputed.[2][3] An old explanation takes it from in and salum “the sea”, “what is in the sea”; de Vaan finds this possible in form but a poor description of an island, especially as Indo-European words for “island” seem to have meant river islands.[2][1] He suggests a loanword from an unknown language, the same one that may have given the Celtic and Greek words, which also have /n/ and /s/.[2] The TLL rejects that derivation and prefers a borrowing of Ancient Greek νῆσος (nêsos, “island”) through an Oscan form.[3]

Compare Old Irish inis (“island”), Welsh ynys (“island”) and νῆσος.[2][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Naevius onwards,[2][4] who tells how a Roman army crossed to Malta and burned the whole island.[5]

Semantic evolution

It meant an island, whether in the sea, a lake or a river, and Insula was the name of a quarter of Syracuse.[5][6] In Rome it was also a large building let out in flats, a tenement block, as when Cicero writes that Clodius' block was up for sale.[5][7] Christian writers used it for a temple.[7]

In Medieval Latin it could also mean a peninsula[8] and the nave of a church,[4] and as a place name it stands for Lille and other towns.[9] It survives as Italian isola, French île, Spanish isla and Portuguese ilha.[1] English isle came through Old French in the late 13th century, and peninsula is paeninsula, “almost an island”.[10]

Timeline

  • c. 235–200 BC – Naevius uses it of Malta.[5][4]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it for a block of flats.[5][4]
  • late 13th century – English isle comes through Old French.[10]
  • 1530s – English takes peninsula and insulate from Latin.[10]

Meanings

Noun

  1. An island.[5][6]
  2. A block of flats, tenement building.[5][1]
  3. (Ecclesiastical Latin) A temple.[7]
  4. (Medieval Latin) A peninsula.[8]
  5. (Medieval Latin) The nave of a church.[4]

Word family

  • īnsulānus
  • īnsulāris
  • īnsulārius
  • īnsulātus
  • īnsulōsus
  • paenīnsula
  • īnsulēnsis
  • īnsulō
  • English isle
  • English peninsula
  • English insulate
  • English isolate

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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
  3. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
  8. ^ a b 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. ^ Graesse, J. G. Th., Friedrich Benedict, and Ernst Plechl (1909), Orbis Latinus: Lexikon lateinischer geographischer Namen, 2nd ed., Berlin: R. C. Schmidt
  10. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com