palmes

Forms

palmes m (genitive palmitis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

The OLD and the TLL connect it with palma (“palm of the hand”), though the TLL finds the formation unclear.^[2][3] Festus explains that vine shoots were given this name because they put out twigs like the fingers of a human hand.^[4][3] De Vaan traces palma to Proto-Italic *palamā- and Proto-Indo-European *plh₂-em-h₂- (“flat, wide”), cognate with Ancient Greek παλάμη (palámē, “palm of the hand”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Virgil,^[6] who has buds swelling on the pliant shoot in the Eclogues.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is a young branch or shoot of a vine, and Lewis & Short note two kinds, one bearing leaves and one bearing fruit.^[2][4] It can stand for the whole vine, as Ovid's unwed tree-trunk without a vine.^[2] It is also a twig or branch of any tree: Curtius has men pulling down the branches of tall trees with sickles.^[2] Church Latin has “branch, shoot of a vine, vine”.^[7]

Timeline

• 70–19 BC – Virgil, of a vine shoot.^[2][6]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid, for the vine.^[2][6]
• 1st century AD – Curtius, of the branches of trees.^[2][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A young branch or shoot of a vine.^[2][4][1][7]
2. (by extension) The vine.^[2][7]
3. A twig, branch, bough of any tree.^[2][1]

Related words

• palma
• pampinus
• sarmentum
• vītis

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson