lunatus

Forms

lūnātus (feminine lūnāta, neuter lūnātum); first/second-declension adjective^[1][2]

Etymology

The OLD takes it as from Latin lūna (“moon”) + -ātus,^[1] while Lewis & Short and Georges treat it as the participle of lūnō (“to bend into a crescent”), itself made from that noun.^[3][2] De Vaan traces lūna to Proto-Italic *louksnā- and Proto-Indo-European *le/ouk-s-nh₂- (“shiny, bright”), probably an old epithet of the moon.^[4] Cognate with Ancient Greek λύχνος (lúkhnos, “lamp”) and Old Prussian lauxnos (“stars”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler's first source is the Bellum Africum.^[5] Virgil uses it of the crescent-shaped shields of the Amazons.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

It describes anything crescent-shaped: Statius has a young bull with a crescent brow,^[3] Pliny the Elder horns and shells,^[3] Columella an iron tool, Celsus a figure, and Lucan a curved sword.^[2][3] In surveyors' geometry it was used of angles whose sides are arcs.^[1]

It also meant bearing a crescent: Martial uses it of the shoe with a crescent-shaped buckle that marked a senator,^[1][3] and Statius of a troop with crescent shields.^[1][3] In the Middle Ages it was glossed in Old High German.^[5]

Timeline

• 2nd half of the 1st century BC – The Bellum Africum uses it.^[5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of the Amazons' shields.^[3][5]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of horns and shells.^[3][5]
• 40–102/103 AD – Martial uses it of a senator's shoe.^[3][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Crescent-shaped, lunate.^[1][3]
2. (geometry) Of angles whose sides are arcs of circles.^[1]
3. Of shoes, having a crescent-shaped buckle.^[1][2]
4. Having crescent-shaped shields.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de