Etymologically
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lunaris

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ɫuːˈnaː.rɪs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [luˈnaː.ris][1]

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