leaena

Forms

leaena f (genitive leaenae); first declension^[1] A late text spells it liena.^[2] Niermeyer also gives lena.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek λέαινα (léaina, “lioness”),^[4][5][1] the feminine of the Greek word for lion;^[6] Köbler notes that the Greek word may itself come from a Semitic language.^[6] Diomedes pairs it with leō.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Catullus,^[6] who uses it in poem 64;^[5] the TLL finds it as a proper name earlier, in Plautus.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is a lioness.^[4][5] Virgil uses it in the Eclogues and the Georgics, Ovid often in the Metamorphoses, and Pliny the Elder and Gellius in prose.^[5] Cicero is quoted for a bronze lioness that was set up.^[5] As a proper name Leaena is a character in Plautus' Curculio,^[1][2] and a courtesan of Athens in the time of Harmodius and Aristogiton, named by Pliny the Elder and Lactantius, whom Lewis & Short call heroic.^[5] It keeps the sense "lioness" in Church and Medieval Latin.^[7][3]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus has Leaena as a name.^[2][1]
• 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus of a lioness.^[5][6]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of lionesses.^[5]
• c. 250–317 AD – Lactantius of the courtesan Leaena.^[5][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A lioness.^[4][5][1]

Related words

• leō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
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 j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
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