Etymologically
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ministrator

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Forms

ministrātor m (genitive ministrātōris); third declension[1][2]

Etymology

It is from Latin ministrō (“to attend, serve”) + -tor.[1][3][4] De Vaan lists it among the derivatives of minor2 (“smaller”), beside minister (“servant”), which he derives from Proto-Italic *minos-tero-; minor2 goes back to *minōs (“less”) and Proto-Indo-European *meih1-iō̆s- (“less”).[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found first in Naevius,[5][6] in a fragment of his epic where the attendants at a sacrifice throw down the entrails.[3]

Semantic evolution

It was an attendant or servant, especially one who waited at table:[1][2] Cicero has a man who did not look at his handsome waiters, Seneca the crowd of servants who run to bring in dinner at a signal, and Petronius a cup-bearer.[3][7] Inscriptions name the ministratores of emperors from Tiberius on, organised in decuries.[3][8] Varro reports that Cato called the accensi ministratores.[3][2]

Cicero also uses it of an assistant who stands by a speaker and prompts him with arguments, an image the Bobbio scholia explain from the man who handed weapons to gladiators.[3][9] Suetonius, in the life of Vitellius, uses it of playing the assistant to Gaius as he drove a chariot,[2] and in the Acts of Paul and Thecla it is the officer of a proconsul.[3] In Ecclesiastical Latin it means one who serves.[10]

Timeline

  • c. 235–200 BC – Naevius uses it of attendants at a sacrifice.[3][6]
  • 116–27 BC – Varro reports Cato's use of it for the accensi.[3][6]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of waiters and of a speaker's prompter.[3][6]
  • before 66 AD – Petronius uses it of a cup-bearer.[3][6]
  • c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius uses it of an assistant to a charioteer.[2][6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. An attendant, servant, especially a waiter at table or a cup-bearer.[1][2][8]
  2. An attendant at a sacrifice.[3]
  3. An assistant who prompts a speaker with arguments; an adviser.[9][8][7]
  4. (Ecclesiastical Latin) One who serves.[10]

Word family

  • ministrātōrius

References

  1. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
  5. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  6. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  7. ^ a b 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
  9. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
  10. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson