Etymologically
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mendum

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Forms

mendum n (genitive mendī); second declension[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *m(e)ndo-.[2] If Old Irish mind (“sign, mark”) belongs here, the word is an Italo-Celtic one; and if the first meaning was “sign, mark”, de Vaan suggests it might come from Proto-Indo-European *men- (“to think”), though he stresses that this is only a theoretical possibility.[2][1] Pokorny and Köbler set up a root Proto-Indo-European *mend- (“fault, defect”).[3][4]

Cognate with Old Irish mennar (“blemish”), Welsh mann (“place”) (compare mann geni (“birthmark”)), Hittite mant- (“something harming”) and perhaps Lycian mẽte- (“harm”).[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Varro,[2][3] for an error: in the De lingua Latina he notes that not every naming of things survives, nor was every surviving name given without a fault (sine mendo).[5]

Semantic evolution

Cicero uses it of mistakes in writing: an erasure that corrected a fault, and the copyists' errors to be removed from his books (librariorum menda).[5][6] He also plays on it in a letter, saying that the Ides of March “contain a great mistake”.[5][6] Ovid uses it of a bodily blemish: a face is rarely free of one (rara tamen mendo facies caret).[5][7] The lawyer Ulpian uses it of a flaw in the appointment of an heir.[5]

In Late Latin it also meant a lie, a deceit, in the grammarian Charisius and in a manuscript of the Vulgate,[6] a sense recorded in Medieval Latin as well.[8]

Timeline

  • 116–27 BC – Varro uses it of a fault in naming.[5][3]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of errors in writing.[5][3]
  • 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of a bodily blemish.[5][3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A physical blemish or defect.[5][6]
  2. An error, mistake, especially in writing.[5][9]
  3. (law) A flaw (in a legal act).[5]
  4. (Late Latin) A lie, deceit.[6][8]

Word family

Usage notes

The feminine menda has the same meanings and is attested somewhat earlier; de Vaan takes it to be based on the old plural of mendum.[2][5] Döderlein distinguishes menda, a natural fault such as a bodily blemish, from mendum, a fault committed, especially a slip in writing.[10]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  3. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  4. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  7. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
  8. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
  9. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper