monumentalis

Forms

monumentālis (neuter monumentāle); third-declension two-termination adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin monumentum (“monument, memorial”) + -ālis.^[2][3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found in the writings of the Roman land surveyors,^[3][4] who call a stone pillar monumentalis when it is a monument and not a mark of a boundary.^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

In the surveyors' texts a terminus monumentalis was said to carry no weight as evidence of a boundary line.^[3] Lewis & Short label the word Late Latin,^[4] and Italian monumentale goes back to it.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Set up as a monument, monumental (of a stone pillar, as opposed to a boundary marker).^[2][3][5]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier