lunaris

Forms

lūnāris (neuter lūnāre); third-declension two-termination adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin lūna (“moon”) + -āris.^[2][1][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Varro, who speaks of lunar days and hours.^[4][5] Cicero uses it in the Dream of Scipio of the course of the moon, the lowest of the heavenly spheres, which gives the deepest sound: hic lūnāris atque īnfimus.^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

It meant what belongs to the moon: Ovid speaks of the moon's horns and horses,^[5] Seneca of its star and its orbit,^[6][3] Pliny the Elder of the lunar circle,^[3] and Vitruvius of the lunar month.^[6]

Medieval writers used it in reckoning time: the lunar month and year, the saltus lūnāris (the day dropped from the moon's reckoning at the end of a cycle) and the nineteen-year lunar cycle.^[7] It also came to mean monthly or lasting a month,^[8][7] and morbus lūnāris was menstruation.^[7] As a noun it named a dependant who owed labour service on Mondays.^[8][4] English took lunar in the early 15th century, in the sense “crescent-shaped”, and used it of the moon from the 1620s.^[9]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro speaks of lunar days.^[5][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of the course of the moon.^[3][4]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of the horns of the moon.^[5][4]
• 1st third of the 8th century AD – Bede uses it in his work on the reckoning of time.^[7][4]
• 844–864 – A charter uses it of a dependant owing Monday service.^[4][8]
• early 15th century – English borrows lunar.^[9]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of or relating to the moon, lunar.^[2][5]
2. Like the moon, crescent-shaped.^[6]
3. (Medieval Latin) Monthly; lasting a month.^[8][7]

Noun

1. (Medieval Latin) A dependant owing labour service on Mondays.^[8][4]

Word family

• sublūnāris

References

1. ^ a b c d 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 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 h 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
7. ^ a b c d e Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
9. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com