Etymologically
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minium

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Pronunciation

  • IPA (Classical): [ˈmɪ.ni.ũː][1]
  • IPA (Ecclesiastical): [ˈmiː.ni.um][1]

Forms

minium n (genitive miniī or minī); second declension[1]

Etymology

It is probably borrowed from Iberian, a word from Spain.[2][3][4] Wiktionary connects it with the name of the river Minius in Spain, and Isidore says the pigment gave its name to a river there.[1][5] Virgil quoted by Quintilian has a cut form min.[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler's first source is Furius Bibaculus (1st century BC).[7]

Semantic evolution

It meant a bright red pigment, properly native cinnabar, sulphide of mercury, as Propertius' Hiberum minium, “Spanish cinnabar”.[2][6] It was also red lead, as in Pliny and Vitruvius.[6]

Virgil's Pan is red with minium, and Tibullus' farmer painted with it.[4] Isidore says the Greeks first found it at Ephesus, but Spain had more than any other region.[5] English minium is a borrowing.[1]

Timeline

  • 1st century BC – Furius Bibaculus uses it.[7]
  • 70–19 BC – Virgil describes Pan red with minium.[4][7]
  • 57/46–12 BC – Propertius speaks of Spanish cinnabar.[6][7]
  • 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder writes of red lead.[6][7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Cinnabar; vermilion.[2][1]
  2. Red lead, minium.[6][1]

Word family

  • mineus
  • miniāceus
  • miniārius
  • miniō
  • minius
  • English minium

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ a b c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  5. ^ a b Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911).
  6. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de