menta

Forms

menta f (genitive mentae); first declension^[1] Also spelled mentha, a spelling some manuscripts of Ovid and of the Vulgate have.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek μίνθη (mínthē, “mint”), adapted to Latin.^[2][4][5] The TLL holds instead that Latin and Greek both took the word from some Mediterranean or Asian language,^[3] and Wiktionary also calls it perhaps a loanword from an extinct substrate language of southern Europe, possibly passed on through Greek.^[1] Köbler finds its further origin unclear.^[4] Varro already counted it among the garden plants that have foreign, Greek names.^[3][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cato is the first author to name it, in his treatise on farming.^[7][4]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Latin it is any cultivated mint.^[2] Cicero, Celsus, Columella and Pliny the Elder use it,^[8] and Pliny writes that mint spreads its pleasant smell over country tables: grato menta mensas odore percurrit in rusticis dapibus.^[9][8] Ovid tells the myth of the nymph Minthe, whom Proserpina turned into this plant.^[9] In the Vulgate the Pharisees are blamed for paying tithes on mint and rue while neglecting justice, a saying about minding trifles and missing what matters.^[9]

The plant stayed in medieval gardens: a capitulary of about 800 lists it among the herbs every royal garden should have, and Walahfrid Strabo gives it a passage of his poem on gardening.^[10] Spoken Latin passed the word on to most Romance languages, which point to a Proto-Romance form *ˈmεnt-a,^[11] continued in Italian menta and French menthe.^[11] It was also borrowed early into the Germanic languages, as Old High German minza and Old English minte.^[4]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato names mint in his work on farming.^[7][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero mentions it in a letter.^[8][4]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid tells how the nymph Minthe was changed into the plant.^[9][4]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder describes its smell at country meals.^[9][4]
• 390–406 AD – The Vulgate uses it in the saying about tithing mint and rue.^[9][4]
• c. 800 – A Frankish capitulary lists it among the herbs of royal gardens.^[10]
• 2nd quarter of the 9th century – Walahfrid Strabo writes of it in his garden poem.^[10][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. Mint, any cultivated mint plant.^[2][9][12]

Word family

• mentastrum
• mentiōsus

Usage notes

The Vulgate's decimatis mentham et rutam (“you tithe mint and rue”) became a byword for care over small matters and neglect of large ones.^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
6. ^ Marcus Terentius Varro, De lingua Latina (text of The Latin Library; book and paragraph numbers as there).
7. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
8. ^ a b c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
9. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c Novum Glossarium Mediae Latinitatis ab anno DCCC usque ad annum MCC (1957–), Copenhagen / Geneva / Paris: Union Académique Internationale; IRHT
11. ^ a b Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom
12. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson