paterfamilias

Forms

paterfamiliās m (genitive patrisfamiliās), also written as two words, pater familiās^[2][3][1] The genitive familiae is also used (pater familiae), and the plural is patrēs familiās, familiae or familiārum.^[2][1]

Etymology

It is from Latin pater (“father”) + familia (“household”), literally “father of the household”.^[1][3] The second part keeps the archaic genitive in ⟨-ās⟩, which the OLD finds in an inscription of 118 BC and which commonly survives in this phrase.^[2][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cato the Elder opens a precept of On Agriculture with paterfamilias ubi ad villam venit (“when the head of the household comes to the farm”), telling him to walk round the estate.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word named the head of a household, the master of the family and its slaves.^[2] Cicero, speaking of practical matters, calls himself “one paterfamilias”, and Caesar, Vitruvius and Seneca use it.^[2] Greek glossaries render it οἰκοδεσπότης “master of the house”,^[4] and Ecclesiastical Latin has it for the master or head of a house.^[5]

In British Medieval Latin it still meant a householder or father, also one who employs others; theologians applied it to God and to Christ, and it could mean a franklin, a landowner.^[6] French père de famille and Spanish padre de familia are calques of it.^[1]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato the Elder uses it in On Agriculture.^[2][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of himself as a man of practical affairs.^[2][7]
• c. 84–25 BC – Vitruvius uses the plural patres familiarum.^[2][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. The head of a household, master of a family, householder.^[2][3][5]
2. (Medieval Latin, theology) God or Christ as master of the house.^[6]
3. (Medieval Latin) A franklin, landowner.^[6]

Usage notes

The OLD groups it with māter familiās, fīlius familiās and fīlia familiās, the mistress, son and daughter of the household.^[2]

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 Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
4. ^ Goetz, Georg (1888–1923), Corpus glossariorum Latinorum, Leipzig: Teubner; vols. VI–VII Thesaurus glossarum emendatarum, digital ed. CGLO, Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
6. ^ a b c Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de