modius

Forms

modius m (genitive modiī or modī); second declension^[1] Cato has a neuter modium, plural modia;^[2][3] the genitive plural is often modium, as in Varro, Cicero and Caesar.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from modus (“measure”) with the suffix -ius, perhaps with a word for “vessel” understood.^[2][4][1] The TLL compares Greek μέδιμνος (médimnos, “medimnus, a grain measure”).^[4] De Vaan traces ⟨modus⟩ to Proto-Italic *medo- (“measure, judgement”) and Proto-Indo-European *med-o- (“measure”), cognate with Umbrian meřs (“law”).^[5]

Isidore of Seville said it is so called because it is complete in its own measure.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler gives Plautus,^[6] who has a genitive plural modiōrum in the Miles gloriosus;^[3] an early law on public weights and measures fixes sixteen pounds to the modius.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is a measuring vessel of standard size, as in the law that punishes anyone who makes the public weights, measures and vessels smaller or larger, and figuratively plēnō modiō, in full measure.^[2][1] Above all it is the Roman dry measure, especially for grain, of sixteen sextāriī or a sixth of a medimnus, about a peck or nine litres.^[2][1]

Church Latin glosses it “bushel, peck, measure”.^[7] In medieval Latin it is also a land measure, the area sown with a modius of grain.^[8] Köbler finds it in the capitularies, councils, charters and many law codes.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus.^[3][6]
• 234–149 BC – Cato has the neuter modium.^[2][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of grain measured in modiī.^[2][6]
• c. 560–636 AD – Isidore of Seville explains it from modus.^[4][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A measuring vessel of standard size;^[2] plēnō modiō, in full measure.^[2]
2. The modius, a Roman dry measure of sixteen sextarii, about a peck;^[2][1][7] a bushel.^[7]
3. (Medieval Latin) A land measure, the area sown with a modius of grain.^[8]

Word family

• modiālis
• modiatio
• modiolum
• modiolus
• sēmodius
• trimodius
• decemmodius
• sēsquimodius

Related words

• modus
• sextārius
• medimnum

Usage notes

Modius is also a Roman family name.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ 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 c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill