pastillus

Forms

pāstillus m (genitive pāstillī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is a diminutive belonging with pānis (“bread”), formed with the suffix ⟨-illus⟩.^[2][3] Its ⟨st⟩ preserves an older stem: the TLL and Wiktionary derive it from the form Proto-Italic *pāstnis, from which pānis itself came.^[4][1] De Vaan, who reconstructs *pāstnelo- (“small cake”), agrees that the diminutive points to that source for pānis; he doubts the further link, made by Walde and Hofmann and by Schrijver, with the root of pāscō (“to graze”), since he sees no way from “graze” to “bread”.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first author is Horace,^[5][6] who mocks a man for smelling of breath lozenges: pāstillōs Rūfillus olet, “Rufillus smells of pastilles”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Festus, as abridged by Paulus, explains it as a little loaf, a diminutive of pānis, and de Vaan adds a neuter pāstillum, a kind of sacrificial cake, from the same source.^[3][5][4] In medicine it was a lozenge or pastille, swallowed or applied as a remedy: Celsus equates such pastilles with what the Greeks called τροχίσκος (trokhískos), and Pliny the Elder describes juices thickened in the sun and divided into lozenges.^[2][3] The TLL notes the spelling ⟨pest-⟩ in Pliny.^[4] Horace and Martial use it of perfumed lozenges for the breath.^[3]

Timeline

• 65–8 BC – Horace mentions breath lozenges.^[3][5][6]
• 14–37 AD – Celsus uses it of medicinal lozenges.^[3][6]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder describes juices made into lozenges.^[3][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. (rare) A little loaf, roll.^[3]
2. (medicine) A pastille, lozenge, swallowed or applied as a remedy.^[2][3]
3. A perfumed lozenge for sweetening the breath.^[3][1]

Word family

• pastillarius

Related words

• pānis

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d 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