mortarium

Forms

mortārium n (genitive mortāriī or mortārī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

Its origin is uncertain.^[1] The OLD thinks it perhaps related to Sanskrit मृणाति (mr̥ṇāti, “crushes”) and Ancient Greek μαραίνω (maraínō, “to quench, destroy”).^[2] De Vaan suggests a noun Proto-Italic *morto- (“ground”) from Proto-Indo-European *mr̥-to- (“crushed”), from the root of morior “to die”, with the extension seen in words meaning to destroy or crush.^[3] Köbler cites Pokorny's Proto-Indo-European *mr̥tós (“ground, crushed”).^[4] Isidore of Seville explained it as the vessel where seeds, ground to powder and so dead, are stored.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler date it from Plautus,^[3][4] and Cato uses it too.^[6]

Semantic evolution

It is a bowl or trough in which things are pounded, a mortar, mostly before the classical period and after Augustus;^[2][6] Nonius defines it as the vessel in which things to be dissolved are ground.^[2][6] Pliny the Elder has mortars of bronze and of lead.^[6] Transferred, it is the large basin in which builders' mortar is mixed, as in Vitruvius, and then the mortar itself.^[6][1] In Medieval Latin it is also a mortar, and a small lamp or cresset.^[7] English mortar for building, from the mid-13th century, comes from Old French mortier and directly from this word, which Etymonline thinks the same as the word for the bowl.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses the word.^[6][3][4]
• 234–149 BC – Cato uses the word.^[6][4]
• c. 84–c. 25 BC – Vitruvius of a trough for builders' mortar.^[6][4]
• mid-13th century – English mortar for building.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bowl or trough in which things are pounded, a mortar.^[2][6][1][7]
2. A basin in which builders' mortar is mixed; mortar of lime, sand and water.^[6][1]
3. (Medieval Latin) A small lamp, cresset.^[7]

Word family

• mortariolum

Related words

• English mortar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com