lignum

Forms

lignum n (genitive lignī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *legno-, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *leǵ-no-, from the root Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- (“to collect”), also in legō (“to gather”): it would first have been wood gathered for the fire.^[2][3][4] De Vaan explains the vowel by the regular change of ⟨-egn-⟩ to ⟨-ign-⟩.^[2] Varro already connected it with gathering, saying that the wood that fell in the fields was picked up.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus, Truculentus: opust lignō, opust carbōnibus, “there's need of firewood, there's need of charcoal”.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

Its first sense is firewood, mostly in the plural, as in Cato's ligna that will burn well without smoke.^[3][6] In general it is wood as it grows, in Virgil's olive root pushed out of dry wood, and wood as a material: Cato says ad lignum dēlē, “wipe it down to the wood” of a wax tablet.^[3] It is the wooden shaft of a spear, and Pliny the Elder uses it of the stone of a fruit.^[3] The jurists set ligna, firewood, against māteria, building timber.^[6]

Church Latin uses it of a tree, a staff and the Cross.^[7] In Medieval Latin it is also a forest, the gallows, the stocks, a rod and a ship.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of firewood.^[3][4]
• 234–149 BC – Cato of wood as a material.^[3][4]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of growing wood and a spear shaft.^[3][4]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder of a fruit stone.^[3][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (especially plural) Firewood.^[3][1]
2. Wood (growing); a tree.^[3][1][7]
3. Wood as a material; a wooden object; the shaft of a spear.^[3]
4. The stone of a fruit.^[3]
5. (Ecclesiastical Latin) The Cross.^[7][8]
6. (Medieval Latin) A forest; the gallows; the stocks; a ship.^[8]

Word family

• lignārius
• ligneus
• lignicīda
• lignor
• lignōsus
• lignāmen
• lignātiō
• lignātor
• ligneolus
• lignicolor

Related words

• legō

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill