Etymologically
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latrina

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ɫaːˈtriː.na][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [laˈtriː.na][1]

Forms

lātrīna f (genitive lātrīnae); first declension[1] A neuter lātrīnum appears in Lucilius and Laberius.[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin lavātrīna (“washing place, bath”) by contraction,[4][2][5] which Varro still gives in the full form.[2][5] That word comes from lavō (“to wash”);[5][6] Wiktionary analyses it as lavō with -tor and -īna, the suffix of nouns of place, as in tōnstrīna (“barbershop”),[1] and the TLL compares pistrīna (“bakery”).[5] The verb goes back to Proto-Italic *lowa- and Proto-Indo-European *(le-)louh₃- (“to wash”).[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lewis & Short, Georges and the TLL find it first in Plautus' Curculio,[2][7][5] where it means a privy.[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Varro explains that the bath at home, later called balneum, was once called lavātrīna,[5][2] and Lucilius still uses latrina for a bath.[2][5][3] The usual sense, though, was a privy or sewer: Suetonius, Columella and Apuleius use it so,[2][7] and Suetonius mentions public latrines.[7] Tertullian and Apuleius use it contemptuously of a brothel or a den of vice.[2][7]

In medieval Poland it also meant a gutter or drain.[8] English borrowed it about 1300 as latrine, and probably again from French in the 1640s.[9]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of a privy.[2][3][10]
  • c. 180–102 BC – Lucilius uses it for a bath.[2][3][10]
  • 116–27 BC – Varro records the full form lavātrīna as the old word for a bath.[2][5][10]
  • c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian uses it for a brothel.[2][7][10]
  • c. 1300 – English borrows it as laterin, a privy.[9]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A latrine, privy.[4][2]
  2. (archaic) A washing place, bath.[4][2][5]
  3. (figurative) A brothel, a den of vice.[2][7]
  4. (Medieval Latin) A gutter, sewer.[8]

References

  1. ^ a b c d 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  3. ^ a b c d e Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
  4. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  6. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  7. ^ a b c d e f Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  8. ^ a b Lexicon mediae et infimae Latinitatis Polonorum (1953–), Kraków: Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN; electronic ed. elexicon.scriptores.pl
  9. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  10. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de