medimnum

Forms

medimnum n (genitive medimnī); second declension^[1] There is also a masculine medimnus, in Lucilius and Nepos, and the TLL records a feminine medimna.^[2][3][4] The genitive plural is medimnum.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek μέδιμνος (médimnos), a Greek measure of grain.^[2][3][4] Isidore explained the name as Latin for half, dīmidius, because it holds five modii, half of ten.^[5][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's first example is Plautus' Stichus, where someone wishes he had a thousand medimni of silver.^[2] Köbler dates it from Cicero.^[6]

Semantic evolution

It is the Greek dry measure of six modii, a bushel;^[2][3] Lucilius speaks of a first, second and third medimnus, and Cicero uses it in the Verrines of wheat sown on the land.^[2][3] A writer on surveying uses it of a measure of land in Cyrenaica.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a thousand medimni of silver.^[2][6]
• c. 180–102 BC – Lucilius has the masculine medimnus.^[3][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of sown wheat.^[3][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A Greek dry measure of six modiī, a bushel.^[2][3][1]
2. A measure of land in Cyrenaica.^[2]

Related words

• modius

References

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