nidor

Forms

nīdor m (genitive nīdōris); third declension^[1]

Etymology

De Vaan tentatively reconstructs Proto-Italic *knei/īd-os- and Proto-Indo-European *knei(H)d-os- (“itch”), assuming that a strong smell was named from a verb “to itch, sting”; on this view it is related to Ancient Greek κνῖσα (knîsa, “smell of roasting fat”), Ancient Greek κνίζω (knízō, “to scratch”), Old Norse hniss (“cooking smell”) and Latvian knìest (“to itch”), but the vowels are hard to reconcile.^[2] The OLD compares the Greek and Old Norse words.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Plautus,^[4] who calls a slave who is always in the kitchen nidor e culina, “a whiff from the kitchen”, in the Mostellaria.^[5] Plautus also has nīdōricupius, “fond of the smell of cooking”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is a rich, strong smell from cooking or burning, and loosely any strong smell.^[3] Lucretius has a lamp just put out offending the nostrils with its sharp smell, Cicero the fumes and smoke of cookshops, and Livy a foul smell from burnt feathers.^[5] Virgil has the smoke of burning galbanum, and Martial and Juvenal the smell of the kitchen.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, “a whiff from the kitchen”.^[5][4]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius, of a lamp just put out.^[5][2][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of the fumes of cookshops.^[5][4]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy, of burnt feathers.^[5][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A rich, strong smell from cooking or burning, fumes, steam.^[3][5][1]
2. Any strong smell.^[3]

Word family

• nīdōrōsus

Related words

• odor
• fūmus
• culīna

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press