Etymologically
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lanugo

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ɫaːˈnuː.ɡoː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [laˈnuː.ɡo][1]

Forms

lānūgō f (genitive lānūginis); third declension[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin lāna (“wool”) + -ūgō.[2][1] De Vaan traces lāna to Proto-Italic *wlānā- and Proto-Indo-European *h₂ulh₁-neh₂- (“wool”), literally “plucked material”.[3] Cognate with Old Irish olann (“wool”), Welsh gwlan (“wool”), Lithuanian vìlna (“wool”) and Ancient Greek λῆνος (lênos, “wool”).[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler date it from Pacuvius,[3][4] who has the first down on a face: nunc primum opacat flora lanugo genas, “now for the first time the blooming down shades his cheeks”.[2]

Semantic evolution

Its first sense is the first hair on the face, and by extension the age at which it appears, youth:[2] Virgil has a cheek yellow with its first down, and Juvenal an old age as venerable as that first down.[5] It is also the soft hair of animals, as in Pliny the Elder's hedgehogs with their harmless down,[2] and the down of plants, as on fruit in Virgil's second Eclogue.[2] In poetry it is used of things resembling down, as when Lucretius describes grass rich in soft down that made a bed.[2] Lewis & Short call it poetic and post-Augustan prose.[5] Wiktionary also gives a transferred sense “sawdust”.[1]

Timeline

  • 220–130 BC – Pacuvius, of the first down on a youth's cheeks.[2][3][4]
  • 96–55 BC – Lucretius, of soft grass.[2][4]
  • 70–19 BC – Virgil, of the down on fruit and on the cheeks.[2][5][4]
  • 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder, of the down of hedgehogs.[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The first hair on the face, down;[2][5][1] the age at which it appears, youth.[2]
  2. The soft hair or down of animals or insects.[2]
  3. The down covering parts of some plants.[2][5][1]
  4. (poetic) Anything resembling down.[2]
  5. Sawdust.[1]

Word family

  • lanugineus
  • lānūginōsus
  • lānūginō

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ 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
  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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press