malva

Forms

malva f (genitive malvae); first declension^[1] Diocletian's price edict has the spelling malba.^[2]

Etymology

It is probably a borrowing from a Mediterranean language, perhaps a Semitic one: de Vaan compares Biblical Hebrew מַלּוּחַ (mallū́aḥ, “saltbush”) and points to the varying vowels of Ancient Greek μαλάχη (malákhē, “mallow”).^[3][1] The TLL likewise derives both the Latin and the Greek word from a Mediterranean language, perhaps Semitic.^[4] Köbler calls it a substrate word of the Mediterranean.^[5]

Varro derived it from the Greek word,^[4][6] and Isidore of Seville from μαλάσσω (malássō, “to soften”), because the plant softens and loosens the bowels.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Cinna and Varro,^[5][3] meaning the mallow.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Cicero, Horace, Ovid and Martial mention the mallow,^[2][9] which the ancients used as a mild laxative.^[2] Pliny the Elder praises both the cultivated and the wild kind, and reports that the Greeks call one malope and named the other malache from its softening the belly.^[9]

British Medieval Latin used it for the marsh mallow and the hollyhock and qualified it as agrestis, silvestris or erratica for wild kinds.^[10] Through Old French mauve it gave the name of the dye mauve (1859).^[11] It survives in Italian malva.^[12]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro uses it and derives it from Greek.^[12][4][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero mentions it in a letter.^[12][5]
• 65–8 BC – Horace mentions it in the Odes.^[2][5]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder describes its kinds.^[9][5]
• c. 560–636 AD – Isidore of Seville explains its name.^[7][5]
• 1859 – English mauve, from it through French, names an aniline dye.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. The mallow plant.^[8][9]
2. (Medieval Latin) The marsh mallow, hollyhock.^[10]

Related words

• English mallow
• English mauve

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ Marcus Terentius Varro, De lingua Latina (text of The Latin Library; book and paragraph numbers as there).
7. ^ a b Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911).
8. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b 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
11. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier