obex

Forms

ō̆bex m or f (genitive ō̆bicis); third declension^[1] It is also spelled obiex.^[2][3] Silius Italicus scans the first syllable short.^[4]

Etymology

It is formed from obiciō (“to throw in the way”), "that which is put in front".^[4][5][1] That verb is a compound of ob- and iaciō (“to throw”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *jak-i- (“to throw”) and Proto-Indo-European *(H)ieh₁- (“to throw, let go”).^[6] The TLL files it under the spelling ⟨obiex⟩.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus uses it in the Persa of an obstacle;^[5] Lewis & Short note that it is mostly poetic and post-Augustan, and absent from Cicero and Caesar.^[5]

Semantic evolution

It is the bar or bolt that fastens a door or gate: Virgil has door-posts propped and fortified with a bar, and Ovid gates closed with a firm bolt;^[5][4] Tacitus and Ammianus speak of the iron bars of city gates.^[5] It is also anything that blocks an entrance, as the huge rock behind which Proteus hides in Virgil.^[4][5] From there it is a barrier or obstacle: in Virgil the sea shuts “us” in with a great barrier,^[4] and the sea's rocky shores are its barriers.^[5] Livy uses it of obstacles on the roads,^[5] and Pliny the Younger of the absence of obstacles to admission.^[5] Döderlein says that pessulī, repāgula and obicēs are bars that take the place of bolts.^[7] Its gender is either masculine or feminine, and the nominative singular is very rare.^[5] Stelten gives "hindrance, obstacle" for Church Latin.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of an obstacle.^[5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of bars and barriers.^[5][4]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of obstacles on the roads.^[5]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus of the bars of gates.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bar or bolt fastening a door or gate.^[4][5][1]
2. Anything that blocks an entrance; a barricade, wall.^[4][5][1]
3. A barrier, obstacle, hindrance.^[4][5][8][1]

Related words

• obiciō
• iaciō
• pessulus
• sera

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
8. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson