lampas

Forms

lampas f (genitive lampadis); third declension^[1] Poets often use the Greek declension (accusative lampada, genitive lampados).^[2] Late Latin also has lampada, -ae.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek λαμπάς (lampás, “torch”),^[2][3][1][5] from λάμπω (lámpō, “to shine”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *leh₂p- (“to glow”).^[1][5] Isidore of Seville explained it as a flame shining at the top, named because it seems to show the motion of licking (lambō).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Plautus,^[5] who has a call to light the torches in a fragment and burning torches in the Menaechmi.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

It is a torch, mostly a poetic word beside lucerna and laterna;^[3][2] Accius uses it of a firebrand for setting fire, and Plautus and Terence of the wedding torch.^[2][3] From the Greek torch race come figurative phrases: Varro has a speaker hand on the torch in the race, and Lucretius compares living things to runners who hand on the torch of life.^[2][3] In poetry it is the light of the sun, and with numerals a day, as well as the light of the moon and stars;^[2] Manilius uses it of a kind of meteor.^[2] From Columella on it is also a lamp or lantern, and the Vulgate has oil taken with the lamps.^[2][3] Late Latin also has a first-declension lampada.^[3][4] Medieval Latin uses it of brilliance or lustre and of a brilliant person.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of torches.^[2][5]
• 170–c. 90 BC – Accius of a firebrand.^[2]
• 116–27 BC – Varro of handing on the torch.^[2][3]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius of the sun's light.^[2]
• 1st century AD – Columella of iron lamps.^[2]
• 390–406 AD – The Vulgate of lamps with oil.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A torch; a firebrand; a wedding torch.^[2][3][1]
2. (in phrases from the Greek torch race) The torch handed on: lampada trādere, to hand on one's task to another.^[2][3]
3. (poetic) The light of the sun, a day; the light of the moon or stars.^[2]
4. A kind of meteor.^[2]
5. A lamp, lantern.^[2][3][7]
6. (Medieval Latin) Brilliance, lustre; a brilliant person.^[6]

Word family

• lampada
• lampadārius
• lampadifera

Usage notes

Lewis & Short call it mostly poetic, and compare lucerna, lychnus and laterna.^[3] Wiktionary gives fax as a synonym.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson