nemoralis

Forms

nemorālis (neuter nemorāle); third-declension two-termination adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin nemus (“grove, wood”) + -ālis.^[2][1][3] De Vaan traces nemus to Proto-Italic *nem-os- and Proto-Indo-European *nem-o/es- (“what is distributed, sacrifice”): the sense “forest, holy clearing”, shared by Greek, Celtic and Italic, would have grown out of “the place of the sacrifice”.^[4]

Cognate with Ancient Greek νέμος (némos, “forest”) and Old Irish nemed (“sanctuary”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Ovid,^[5] who in the Amores puts a dead parrot among the birds of the Elysian grove, nemorālī sēde.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It is a poetic word^[6] for what belongs to or is found in a wood: Ovid speaks of shadows of the woods and a cave among the trees.^[6][7] In particular it referred to the grove of Diana near Aricia: Ovid calls her temple there templum nemorāle Diānae.^[6][8][9] Of deities it meant dwelling in the woods: Statius calls Diana nemorālis Dēlia, and Calpurnius speaks of woodland goddesses.^[2] Calpurnius also uses the neuter as an adverb, of songs that echo like the woods.^[7][10] In the manuscripts it is sometimes confused with memorālis.^[3]

British medieval writers used it of wooded hills and of animals living in woodland, and a iūdex nemorālis was a forester.^[11] It is the source of the English nemoral.^[1]

Timeline

• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of woodland shade and of Diana's temple at Aricia.^[6][5]
• 1st century AD – Calpurnius uses it of woodland goddesses.^[2][5]
• c. 45–96 AD – Statius calls Diana nemorālis Dēlia.^[2][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of or belonging to a wood or grove, sylvan.^[2][6][7]
2. Of the grove of Diana at Aricia.^[8][9]
3. Of deities: frequenting the woods.^[2]
4. (Medieval Latin) Of animals: living in woodland;^[11] iūdex nemorālis, a forester.^[11]

Related words

• nemus
• English nemoral

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
9. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
10. ^ VoLat: Vocabolario della Lingua Latina (2018), Milan: Hoepli
11. ^ a b c Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press