Etymologically
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lunatus

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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