Etymologically
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lampas

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈɫam.pas][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈlam.pas][1]

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