Etymologically
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patella

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [paˈtɛl.la][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [paˈtɛl.la][1]

Forms

patella f (genitive patellae); first declension[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin patina (“dish, pan”) + -la, a diminutive.[2][3][4] The TLL derives it from that noun or from patera (“bowl”).[5] Varro explained such dishes from patulus (“open, spread out”), and Isidore of Seville likewise described the dish as a wide-mouthed pot.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Varro,[6] whose Menippean satires say that a dish set before a hungry man is a challenge to the fishponds of Naples.[2]

Semantic evolution

It is a small dish or plate, used also for cooking:[2][3] Varro has onions cooked in dishes, Horace and Martial use it, and Pliny the Elder mustard boiled in pans.[2][3] An inscription uses it of a military decoration for bravery, perhaps a small shield.[2] Celsus calls the small soft bone that covers the knee joint the patella, from its shape.[2][4] It also names a disease of the olive tree.[1] In medieval Latin it is a salt pan or a kind of lamp.[7] Through Old French and Catalan it gave Spanish paella, and English took patella for the kneecap in the 1690s.[4]

Timeline

  • 116–27 BC – Varro of a dish and of cooking in dishes.[2][6]
  • 65–8 BC – Horace.[3]
  • 14–37 AD – Celsus of the kneecap.[2]
  • 1690s – Borrowed into English as patella, "kneecap".[4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A small dish or plate; a pan for cooking.[2][3][1][8]
  2. A military decoration for bravery, perhaps a small shield.[2]
  3. The kneecap, patella.[2][1][4]
  4. A disease of the olive tree.[1]
  5. (Medieval Latin) A salt pan; a kind of lamp.[7]

Word family

  • patellārius
  • patellula

Usage notes

Arnobius and Augustine name goddesses Patella and Patellāna, set over the opening of the grain.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g 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 c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  6. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  7. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
  8. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson