medicinus

Forms

medicīnus (feminine medicīna, neuter medicīnum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin medicus (“physician”) + -īnus, from medeor “to heal”.^[2][1][3] De Vaan traces ⟨medeor⟩ to Proto-Italic *med-ē-, Proto-Indo-European *med- (“to measure”), with a shift from “to measure” to “to heal”, cognate with Old Irish midithir (“measures, judges”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler's earliest source is Plautus, and Gaffiot cites Varro's Dē linguā Latīnā.^[3][5] Köbler dates Plautus c. 250–184 BC.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It meant of a physician, medical, especially in ars medicīna or rēs medicīna “the art of healing”, as in Varro, Hyginus and Augustine, and Lewis & Short note that as an adjective it is only ante- and post-classical, while the feminine noun medicīna “medicine” is classical.^[2][6][5]

English medicine (c. 1200) comes from its feminine through Old French.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it.^[3]
• 116–27 BC – Varro has ars medicīna.^[6][3]
• 354–430 AD – Augustine uses it.^[6][3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of a physician, medical, ars medicīna, medicine.^[2][6]

Word family

• medicīna

Related words

• medicus
• medeor
• English medicine

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ 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 Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
6. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com