offa

Forms

offa f (genitive offae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

The origin is unknown.^[2][3][4] Wiktionary suggests that it may be Celtic, mentioning proposed links with Welsh yfflon (“pieces, bits”) and oddf (“knot, bulb”).^[1] Festus says that the ancients used the word for a piece cut off in the shape of a ball, like porridge rolled by hand, and Isidore of Seville that it is properly a piece bitten off.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler records it first in Naevius,^[4] who has penita offa, which Festus explains as a piece of meat with the tail.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It means a bit or morsel of food, especially a small ball or cake of flour.^[2][5] Plautus has a character ask for a kiss instead of an offa, as one throws to barking dogs, and Virgil has a sop drugged with honey thrown to Cerberus.^[3][6] Ennius, quoted by Pliny the Elder, tells of fathers snatching a morsel from their crying children, and Cato used the proverb inter os et offam, “between mouth and morsel”.^[3][6] Varro and Columella use it of balls of feed for birds and animals.^[3] It is applied to a lump of meat, as Plautus' offa porcina, to a pellet of another substance, as Pliny's gum rolled into pellets, and to any shapeless mass: Pliny the Elder uses it of a shapeless thing in the sea, and Juvenal of abortions and of a swelling on the face.^[2][6] Persius has it figuratively of a lump of verse.^[6] It survived in Old Italian and Sardinian and in Old French, from which Basque borrowed it.^[3] Medieval writers in Britain use it of a morsel, of sops in wine, of the lump that choked Daniel's dragon, of the morsel taken in an ordeal, and of a lump of flesh.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 235–200 BC – Naevius has penita offa.^[3][4]
• 204–169 BC – Ennius tells of fathers snatching a morsel from their children.^[3][4]
• 234–149 BC – Cato uses the proverb inter os et offam.^[3][6][4]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil has a drugged sop thrown to Cerberus.^[3][4]
• Medieval Latin – It names the morsel taken in an ordeal.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A morsel, bit of food; especially a small ball or cake of flour, a dumpling.^[2][5][1]
2. A piece of meat.^[6][3]
3. A lump or pellet of another substance.^[2][6]
4. A shapeless mass; an abortion; a swelling from an injury.^[2][6]
5. (Medieval Latin) A sop in wine; the morsel taken in a judicial ordeal.^[7]

Word family

• ofella
• offarius
• offātim
• offula
• offla

Usage notes

In Medieval Latin Offa is also a man's name, corresponding to Old English Offa.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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 d e f g h i j k l Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ 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