Etymologically
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lustrum

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Forms

lūstrum n (genitive lūstrī); second declension[1]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.[2][3] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *lūstro- (“expiation”), with the suffix of mōnstrum.[2][4] Walde and Pokorny derived it from an earlier sense “illumination”, from the root of lūx, but de Vaan finds no good evidence for this; a link with lavō “to wash” is possible but also unsupported.[2] The OED, quoted by Etymonline, suggests the root of luō “to wash”.[3] Varro derived it from luere “to pay”, because the censors collected taxes every fifth year.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler date it from Cato.[2][6] Köbler dates Cato 234–149 BC.[6]

Semantic evolution

It was a ceremony of purification, above all the one the censors performed every five years at the close of the census, called lūstrum condere, with the sacrifice of a pig, a sheep and a bull.[7][8] From this it meant a censor's five-year term, then any period of five years, and loosely four years or any long period.[7] It was also a festival held every four or five years and the cycle of a heavenly body.[7] Isidore explains it as a Greek pentetēris, a period of five years.[9]

English lustrum was borrowed in the 1580s.[3] The verb lūstrō “to purify; to survey” is related; English luster goes back to it in its sense “to illuminate”.[3]

Timeline

  • 234–149 BC – Cato uses it.[2][6]
  • c. 180–102 BC – Lucilius uses it of a censor's term and of a five-year period.[7][6]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero says a censor closed the lustrum and sacrificed a bull.[7][6]
  • 116–27 BC – Varro derives it from luere “to pay”.[5][6]
  • 1580s – English lustrum is recorded.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A ceremony of purification, especially the one closing the census, lūstrum condere, to perform it.[7]
  2. A censor's five-year term of office.[7]
  3. A period of five years; a period of four years; a long period.[7]
  4. A festival held every four or five years.[7]
  5. The period of a heavenly body's revolution.[7]

Word family

  • bilūstris
  • lūstrālis
  • lūstricus
  • lūstrificus
  • lustrō

Usage notes

A different noun lustrum, mostly in the plural lustra, meant a bog, the haunts of wild beasts, and a den of vice; the OLD relates it to lutum “mud”.[7][8]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e 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 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  5. ^ a b Marcus Terentius Varro, De lingua Latina (text of The Latin Library; book and paragraph numbers as there).
  6. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911).