Etymologically
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ostrea

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈɔs.tre.a][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈɔs.tre.a][1]

Forms

ostrea f (genitive ostreae); first declension[1] A neuter ostreum (genitive ostreī) is also used, from Ennius on.[2][3] Horace scans the word as two syllables.[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek ὄστρεον (óstreon, “oyster”).[2][1][4] The TLL takes the feminine to have grown out of the neuter plural, the neuter perhaps being restored after the Greek in more refined speech, and notes that Varro already recognised the Greek origin.[5] Köbler compares Proto-Indo-European *ost- (“bone”), the root of the Greek word for bone.[4][6] Isidore of Seville explained the name from testa (“shell”), the shell that protects the soft flesh inside.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's first citation is Plautus' Rudens, in a list of catches from the sea: sea urchins, limpets, oysters and acorn-shells.[2]

Semantic evolution

It names a bivalve shellfish, above all the oyster as a delicacy;[2] Lewis & Short also give "mussel" and "sea-snail".[3] Varro mentions Lucrine oysters in his Menippean satires, and Cicero writes that he had easily kept away from oysters and lampreys.[2] Cicero also reports the belief that oysters and other shellfish grow and shrink with the moon.[2] Pliny the Elder mentions oyster beds,[3] Juvenal writes of people who run off to Baiae and its oysters, and Gellius names the oysters of Tarentum.[2] English oyster comes from the Old French form and directly from this word.[6]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of oysters among the catches of the sea.[2]
  • 204–169 BC – Ennius uses the neuter ostreum.[2][3]
  • 116–27 BC – Varro of Lucrine oysters.[2]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of oysters and the moon.[2]
  • c. 165 AD – Gellius of the oysters of Tarentum.[2]
  • late 13th century – English oistre, from Latin, partly through Old French.[6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A bivalve shellfish; especially an oyster as a delicacy.[2][3][1][7]
  2. A mussel or sea-snail.[3][1]

Word family

  • ostreārius
  • ostreātus
  • ostreōsus
  • English oyster

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  5. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  6. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson