marrubium

Forms

marrubium n (genitive marrubiī or marrubī); second declension^[1] Also spelled marruvium, the spelling of the best manuscripts of Celsus, Columella and Pliny.^[2][3]

Etymology

The origin is unknown.^[2][1] Köbler takes it to be probably a foreign word,^[4] and Heraeus, cited by the TLL, connected it with the Marruvini, the people of Marruvium.^[3] Wiktionary suggests a Semitic word for “bitter”, such as Arabic مُرّ (murr), since the plant is bitter.^[1]

Isidore of Seville explained the name from its bitterness.^[5][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it from Celsus onwards,^[3][4] as the name of horehound, a medicinal herb.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Columella describes its bitter juice and tells how to gather its tender stalks from untilled ground,^[3] and Pliny the Elder reports that the Greeks call it prasion and gives other names for it.^[6][3] Pliny also tells of two kinds, a black and a white;^[3] the OLD identifies marrubium nigrum perhaps as black horehound.^[2] It was much used in medicine.^[3]

It lives on in Italian marrobbio, Old French marouge and Spanish marrubio.^[3]

Timeline

• 14–37 AD – Celsus uses it in his work on medicine.^[3][4]
• c. 47 AD – Scribonius Largus prescribes it.^[7][4]
• 1st century AD – Columella writes of its bitter juice.^[3][4]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder gives its Greek name and its kinds.^[6][4]
• c. 560–636 AD – Isidore derives its name from its bitterness.^[5][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. Horehound, Marrubium vulgare, a bitter medicinal herb.^[2][6]
2. marrubium nigrum: perhaps black horehound, Ballota nigra.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911).
6. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn