Etymologically
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macies

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈma.ki.eːs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈmaː.t͡ʃi.es][1]

Forms

maciēs f (genitive maciēī); fifth declension[1]

Etymology

It is related to macer (“lean, thin”) and maceō (“to be thin”), with the suffix -iēs.[2][3][1] De Vaan traces macer to Proto-Italic *makro- (“long, lean”) and Proto-Indo-European *mh₂ḱ-ro- (“long”).[4] Cognate with Ancient Greek μακρός (makrós, “long”), Hittite maklant- (“thin, meagre”) and Old Irish do·formaig (“to add, increase”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler date it from Lucretius;[4][5] the OLD quotes an early tragedy of unknown authorship in which a body wastes away with leanness.[2]

Semantic evolution

It means thinness of body, leanness or wasting, as Cicero asks with what weakness and what thinness the consul Hirtius set out to war.[2][3] Horace personifies it: Wasting and a new troop of fevers fell upon the earth.[2] Of soil it means poverty or thinness, as in Ovid, and of style meagreness: Quintilian complains that some teachers take thinness for health.[2] Church Latin glosses it emaciation, thinness, poverty.[6]

Timeline

  • 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it.[4][5]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of a consul's thinness.[3][5]
  • 65–8 BC – Horace personifies wasting.[2][5]
  • 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid of poor soil.[2][5]
  • c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian of meagre style.[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Thinness of body, leanness, wasting, emaciation.[2][3][6][1]
  2. Of soil, poverty, thinness.[2][1]
  3. Of style, meagreness.[2]

Word family

  • maciō
  • macilentus
  • ēmaciō

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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
  3. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c d 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
  6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson