Etymologically
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medicina

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Pronunciation

  • IPA (Classical): [mɛ.dɪˈkiː.na][1]
  • IPA (Ecclesiastical): [me.diˈt͡ʃiː.na][1]

Forms

medicīna f (genitive medicīnae); first declension[1]

Etymology

It is the feminine of the adjective medicīnus “of healing”, used as a noun with ars understood.[2][3] The adjective is formed from medicus “doctor”.[2][3][1][4] Medicus belongs with medeor “to heal”, which de Vaan derives from Proto-Italic *med-ē-, Proto-Indo-European *med- (“to measure”), through a shift from “measure” to “dispense a cure”.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has a man who searched “in the surgeries, in the barbers' shops, at all the temples”.[2] Köbler dates Plautus c. 250–184 BC.[6]

Semantic evolution

It meant the art of healing, as Cicero's medicinam exercere “to practise medicine”, the giving of drugs, as in Cato's warning that the Greeks had sworn to kill all barbarians with medicine, and in Plautus a doctor's surgery.[2][7] It meant a remedy or cure, as Cicero's “the remedy is weaker than the disease”, a treatment to improve things, and a cure for troubles of the mind.[2]

Isidore defines medicine as what protects or restores the body's health, its matter being diseases and wounds.[8] English medicine came from it through Old French around 1200.[9]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of a doctor's surgery.[2][6]
  • 234–149 BC – Cato uses it of dosing with drugs.[2][6]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of the art of healing and of remedies.[2][7][6]
  • c. 1200 – English medicine is recorded.[9]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The art of healing, medicine.[2][1]
  2. Dosing with drugs.[2]
  3. A doctor's surgery, clinic.[2][1]
  4. A remedy, cure.[2][1]
  5. A remedy (for faults of things or of the mind).[2]

Word family

  • medicīnālis
  • mulomedicina

Usage notes

Döderlein says mederi is healing as the physician's act, while sanare is the effect of the medicine.[10]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  4. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  7. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
  8. ^ Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911).
  9. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  10. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper