pale

Forms

palē f (genitive palēs); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek πάλη (pálē, “wrestling”).^[2][3][4] Köbler compares the Greek verb παλαίω (palaíō, “to wrestle”) and calls the further origin unclear.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Statius, meaning wrestling: in the Thebaid “oiled wrestling”, uncta pale, was Tydeus' chief pursuit.^[2][3][6][5]

Semantic evolution

It remained a word of the post-Augustan poets,^[3] used by Statius in the Thebaid and the Achilleid and later by Sidonius Apollinaris, who names palē beside games.^[3][7][6] The Latin glossaries render it with lucta, “wrestling”.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 45–96 AD – Statius uses it for wrestling in the Thebaid and the Achilleid.^[2][7][5]
• c. 431–486 AD – Sidonius Apollinaris uses it in his poems and letters.^[3][7][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Wrestling.^[2][3][8]

Usage notes

The TLL notes that the word seems to have been confused with the name of the goddess Pales.^[6] A different word is the place name Pālē, a town on Cephallenia.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
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 Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ a b c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.