lanarius

Forms

lānārius (feminine lānāria, neuter lānārium); first/second-declension adjective.^[1][2] As a noun: lānārius m (genitive lānāriī or lānārī); second declension.^[3]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin lāna (“wool”) + -ārius.^[1][4][3] De Vaan lists the word among the derivatives of the noun, found from Plautus on.^[5] The base goes back to Proto-Italic *wlānā- and Proto-Indo-European *h₂ulh₁-neh₂- (“wool”), literally “plucked material”.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus (c. 250–184 BC)^[6] has the noun lānārius, a worker in wool, in the Aulularia.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

The adjective, “of wool, for working wool”, is post-Augustan according to Lewis and Short.^[2] Columella and Pliny the Elder call soapwort radix lānāria or herba lānāria, the plant used for washing wool.^[1][2] Inscriptions name trades such as the lānāriī coāctōrēs,^[1] the lānārius coāctiliārius, a maker of felted cloth, and the lānārius pectinārius, a wool-carder.^[2]

In Medieval Latin the noun named a craftsman of the woollen industry and a wool merchant.^[7] The TLL lists Romance descendants such as Old French lanier, which in Old French also took on the sense “lazy, slack”.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses the noun for a worker in wool.^[2][5][6]
• 1st century AD – Columella prescribes washing Tarentine sheep with radix lānāria.^[1][6]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder names the plant herba lānāria.^[2][6]
• 343/350 AD – Firmicus Maternus uses the noun.^[2][6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of wool, working in wool.^[1][2]
2. radix lānāria, herba lānāria: soapwort, a plant of the genus Saponaria.^[1][2]

Noun

1. A worker or dealer in wool.^[1][2]
2. lānārius pectinārius: a wool-carder;^[2] lānārius coāctiliārius: a maker of felted cloth.^[2]
3. (Medieval Latin) A craftsman of the woollen industry; a wool merchant.^[7]

Word family

• lānāria

Related words

• lānifer
• lāniger
• lānificus
• lānātus

References

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