latex

Forms

latex m (genitive laticis); third declension^[1] Accius has it as a feminine.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is probably borrowed from Ancient Greek λάταξ (látax, “drop of wine”), with the Greek ending changed to ⟨-ex⟩ to fit the Latin nouns in ⟨-ex⟩.^[4][2][1] The Thesaurus connects the Greek word with the game of cottabus, played with the last drops of wine, which may have come to Latin from Sicily or southern Italy.^[5] De Vaan agrees with Ernout and Meillet that the shift from a drop of wine to water in general is strange, unless it began as a strong metaphor; the word is mainly poetic.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler date it from Accius,^[4][6] who has “not washed with warm water”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is a poetic word for water, especially running water, as a stream or spring, and for any liquid or juice, as Lucretius' “vine-born liquids” for wine and Virgil's “the feigned waters of Avernus”.^[2][3] Church Latin glosses it “liquid, water”.^[7]

In New Latin it was used in medicine of a clear liquid in the body and in botany of the milky sap that some plants exude when cut.^[1]

Timeline

• 170–c. 90 BC – Accius of water.^[2][4][6]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius of wine.^[2][6]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of the waters of Avernus.^[3][6]
• 1660s – Borrowed into English as latex, first of a bodily fluid.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. Water; running water, a stream or spring.^[2][3][1]
2. A liquid, juice.^[2][3][1]
3. (New Latin) A clear bodily fluid; the milky sap of plants, latex.^[1]

Usage notes

Commodian uses a separate latex in the plural for hiding places, a learned coinage from lateō.^[5][6]

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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com