Etymologically
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meracus

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [mɛˈraː.kʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [meˈraː.kus][1]

Forms

merācus (feminine merāca, neuter merācum, superlative merācissimus); first/second-declension adjective[1] It has a comparative merācior and a superlative merācissimus.[2][1] Manuscripts of medical writers often spell it merātus, apparently a scribal error.[3]

Etymology

It is from Latin merus + -ācus,[2][1] formed like ebriacus (“drunk”).[2][3] The adjective merus (“pure, unmixed”) goes back to Proto-Italic *mero- and Proto-Indo-European *merH-o- (“remaining, pure”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero has it first, of wine taken less diluted: in On the Nature of the Gods a doctor knows that a patient told to drink wine will take it too strong.[3][5]

Semantic evolution

Its proper use is of drinks, above all wine, taken neat or little mixed; the medical writers, from Celsus on, use it often.[3][6] Horace and Persius apply it to undiluted hellebore,[6] and figuratively Cicero speaks of a people that drank a liberty too undiluted.[6][7] Late writers used it of anything pure, Augustine of the lust for power and Sidonius of a very pure fountain of knowledge.[8] The adverb merācē is post-Augustan.[6]

Timeline

  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of wine and, figuratively, of liberty.[3][6][5]
  • 65–8 BC – Horace uses it of hellebore.[6][5]
  • 14–37 AD – Celsus prescribes wine more or less undiluted.[3][5]
  • c. 431–486 AD – Sidonius Apollinaris writes of a very pure fountain of knowledge.[6][5]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Undiluted, neat, of wine and other drinks.[2][6]
  2. Pure, unadulterated, of drugs and other substances.[6][8]
  3. (figurative) Unmixed, unrestrained.[6][8]

Word family

  • merāculus

Usage notes

The TLL quotes a late grammarian's distinction: merum is the pure liquid by itself, merācum something mixed, that is, wine strong but not wholly unmixed.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e 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 d e f g Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  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 c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
  8. ^ a b c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn