monolithus

Forms

monolithus, monolitha, monolithum (first/second-declension adjective); also spelled monolitus.^[1][2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek μονόλιθος (monólithos, “made of a single stone”).^[1][3][4] The Greek word is a compound of μόνος (mónos, “alone, single”) and λίθος (líthos, “stone”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest author to use it is the mime writer Laberius, who speaks of columnae “columns” made of a single stone.^[3][2][6]

Semantic evolution

The word stayed rare and kept its one meaning, “made from one block of stone”.^[1][3] Later it describes marble doorposts in Ampelius,^[3][2] and the TLL counts a reading in Sidonius Apollinaris as doubtful.^[7] Lewis and Short call it ante- and post-classical.^[3]

It was taken into Italian as monolito^[6] and into French as monolithe in the 16th century;^[8] English monolith comes from the French word.^[8]

Timeline

• 3rd or 4th century AD – Ampelius describes marble doorposts made of one stone.^[3][5]
• 1829 – English takes up monolith for a monument of one large stone, by way of French.^[8]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Made of a single stone, monolithic.^[1][3][2]

Related words

• English monolith

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 Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
3. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
5. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
8. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com