materia

Pronunciation

• IPA (Classical): [maːˈtɛ.ri.a]^[1]
• IPA (Ecclesiastical): [maˈtɛː.ri.a]^[1]

Forms

māteria f (genitive māteriae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is derived from māter “mother”, in the sense “source”, with the suffix -ia.^[2][3][4][1] Mater is inherited from Proto-Italic *mātēr, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *méh₂-tr- (“mother”).^[3] The philosophical sense “matter” is a semantic loan from Ancient Greek ὕλη (húlē, “wood, matter”), introduced by Cicero.^[1]

Wiktionary compares Old Armenian մայր (mayr, “cedar”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus onwards.^[3][5] Cicero notes that a builder does not make his timber himself.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Its first sense was wood as building material, timber, and the woody part of a tree, as in Vitruvius.^[2] From this it meant mortar, and any substance of which something is made, material, as Lucretius' and Cicero's matter of the universe.^[2][6]

It meant the subject matter of a speech or book, as Horace's “choose a subject equal to your strength”, the material on which an art is exercised, and an occasion or cause, as Cicero's Clodius, “the field and fuel of Milo's glory”.^[2] In medicine it was morbid matter in the body.^[2] It survives as Spanish madera and Portuguese madeira, “wood”, and English matter came from it through Anglo-French about 1200.^[1][7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it.^[3][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of timber and of the cause of glory.^[2][5]
• c. 84–c. 25 BC – Vitruvius uses it of mortar.^[2][5]
• c. 1200 – English matter is recorded.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. Wood, timber.^[2][1]
2. The woody part of a tree.^[2]
3. Mortar.^[2]
4. Matter, material, substance.^[2][1]
5. (medicine) Bodily substance; morbid matter.^[2]
6. The material of an art or study.^[2]
7. Subject matter, topic.^[2]
8. An occasion, cause, means.^[2][1]

Word family

• māteriālis
• māteriārius
• māteriātūra
• māteriēs
• materinus
• māterior

Related words

• mater
• English matter
• English material

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ 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
4. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com