lacunar

Forms

lacūnar n (genitive lacūnāris); third declension^[1] The plural is often lacūnāria, with genitive lacūnāriōrum in Vitruvius.^[2][3] Isidore gives a nominative lacūnārium.^[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin lacūna (“hollow, gap”) + -āris.^[4][1] De Vaan lists it under lacus (“lake, basin”) and explains it as “that which contains hollows”; its likeness in meaning to laqueātus (“panelled”) he thinks a coincidence.^[5] That noun goes back to Proto-Italic *laku- and Proto-Indo-European *lok-u- (“lake”).^[5] Cognate with Old Irish loch, Ancient Greek λάκκος (lákkos, “pond”) and Old English lagu.^[5] Servius already related it to ⟨lacus⟩.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler and de Vaan record it first in Cicero,^[7][5] who tells of a sword let down e lacunari, from the ceiling, hanging by a horsehair.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

It is one of the sunken ornamental panels of a ceiling, and in the plural or as a collective singular a panelled ceiling.^[4] Horace says that no ivory or gilded ceiling shines in his house, non ebur neque aureum mea renidet in domo lacunar.^[2][3] Pliny the Elder uses the plural of painted ceilings.^[2] Juvenal's spectare lacunar, to gaze at the ceiling, means to pretend not to notice.^[4][2][3] Vitruvius uses it of a kind of sundial.^[4][3] Medieval writers in Britain use it of a panelled ceiling, glossed in Old English, and figuratively of the lid of a coffin.^[8]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of a ceiling.^[2][7]
• c. 84–c. 25 BC – Vitruvius uses it of a sundial and of ceiling panels.^[4][3][7]
• 65–8 BC – Horace has aureum lacunar.^[2][7]
• c. 67–c. 127 AD – Juvenal has spectare lacunar, to turn a blind eye.^[4][7]
• c. 560–636 AD – Isidore gives the form lacunarium.^[2][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A sunken panel of a ceiling, a coffer;^[4][2][3] (plural or collective) a panelled or coffered ceiling.^[4][2][3]
2. spectare lacunar: to gaze at the ceiling, to turn a blind eye.^[4][2]
3. A kind of sundial.^[4][3]
4. (Medieval Latin) The lid of a coffin.^[8]

Related words

• lacūna
• lacus

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
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