lignarius

Forms

lignārius (feminine lignāria, neuter lignārium); first/second-declension adjective; as a noun lignārius m (genitive lignāriī or lignārī); second declension^[2][1]

Etymology

It is from Latin lignum (“wood, firewood”) + -ārius.^[2][1][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's earliest record is in Livy, who tells of a portico built outside the Porta Trigemina inter lignarios, “among the wood-dealers”, a place in Rome that was perhaps the timber market.^[2]

Semantic evolution

As an adjective it meant “of or connected with wood”:^[2] Scribonius Largus speaks of a file for wood (lima lignaria),^[3][4] a land surveyors' text of a via lignaria, and later writers of fabrica lignaria, carpentry.^[3] The masculine noun named a worker or dealer in wood, a carpenter or joiner: an inscription shows the wood-workers recommending a candidate for the aedileship, and Palladius and the Vulgate have the carpenter.^[2][4][3] The neuter lignārium was a woodshed or place for storing wood.^[3]

Medieval Latin used the adjective for “wooden”.^[5] The noun lives on in Italian legnaio and Spanish leñero, and the neuter in Italian legnaia (“woodshed”).^[3]

Timeline

• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy mentions the place in Rome called inter lignarios.^[2][6]
• c. 47 AD – Scribonius Largus mentions a file for working wood.^[3][6]
• end of the 4th or beginning of the 5th century AD – Palladius uses the noun for a carpenter and the neuter for a woodshed.^[4][3][6]
• 390–406 AD – The Vulgate speaks of the carpenter, artifex lignarius.^[4][6]
• 538/539–594 AD – Gregory of Tours writes of a man skilled in carpentry.^[3][6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of or connected with wood; for working wood.^[2][4][3]
2. (Medieval Latin) Made of wood, wooden.^[5]

Noun

1. A worker or dealer in wood; a carpenter, joiner.^[2][4]
2. inter lignarios: a place in Rome, perhaps the timber market.^[2]
3. (neuter, lignārium) A woodshed, a store for wood.^[3]

Related words

• lignātiō
• lignātor
• ligneolus
• ligneus
• lignor
• lignum

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
6. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de