Etymologically
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lea

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈɫe.a][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈlɛː.a][1]

Forms

lea f (genitive leae); first declension[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin leō (“lion”), a feminine made to it.[2][3][4] leō is itself borrowed from Ancient Greek λέων (léōn, “lion”).[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Varro used it in a fragment, panthera et lea, quoted by the Virgil commentator Philargyrius,[3][5] and the first surviving text with it is Lucretius, of lionesses that hurl their bodies in a leap.[3][4]

Semantic evolution

It is a poetic word for a lioness, beside the usual leaena.[5][1] Ovid uses both, as in a saeva lea that he calls leaena a few lines before, and in the Chimaera with the breast and face of a lioness.[3][5] Valerius Flaccus uses it of lions in general.[6] A version of the Old Latin psalter has super leam et basiliscum, where the Vulgate has aspidem.[3]

The Roman grammarians discussed whether it was good Latin.[3] Philargyrius says that although the ancients denied that the word was Latin, it had authority; they used leō for both the male and the female, as Plautus did.[3] Charisius says that one says leaena, not lea, but that Ovid has the latter,[3] and Servius counts it, with hospita and paupera, among the feminines the poets coined, since nouns in ⟨-o⟩ do not make feminines of their own.[3]

Timeline

  • 116–27 BC – Varro uses panthera et lea.[3][4]
  • 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it of enraged lionesses.[3][4]
  • 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it in the Metamorphoses and the Fasti.[3][4]
  • end of the 1st century AD – Valerius Flaccus uses it of lions in general.[6][4]
  • c. 400 AD – Servius counts it among the poets' feminines.[3][4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (poetic) A lioness.[2][5][1]
  2. (poetic) A lion in general.[6]

Usage notes

The ordinary word is leaena, which Servius calls Greek;[3][5] Nonius notes leae used for leaenae.[3][5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b 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 o Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  5. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn