Etymologically
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menta

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈmɛn.ta], [ˈmɛn.taː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈmɛn.ta], [ˈmɛn.ta][1]

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