Etymologically
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pavo

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Pronunciation

  • IPA (Classical): [ˈpaː.woː][1]
  • IPA (Ecclesiastical): [ˈpaː.vo][1]

Forms

pāvō m (genitive pāvōnis); third declension[1]

Etymology

It is probably a word from the East, like Ancient Greek ταώς (taṓs, “peacock”).[2][3] Wiktionary suggests it may be borrowed from the Greek or imitative.[1] An older and late form was pāvus, used by Ennius.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Ennius uses the form pavus.[4] Köbler's first source for pāvō is Varro (116–27 BC).[5]

Semantic evolution

It meant the peacock, the bird sacred to Juno, and its flesh was a favourite dish of the Romans, as in Cicero and Juvenal.[6] Columella distinguishes male and female, and Gellius calls the female pavo femina.[6][7]

Isidore says it is named from the sound of its cry and that its flesh hardly rots.[8] In medieval Latin it was also a stuff of bright colours and a bier shaped like a wheelbarrow.[5][9] Romance kept it, as Spanish pavo and Italian pavone.[1] English peacock has as its first part Old English pawa, from Latin pavo.[10]

Timeline

  • 204–169 BC – Ennius uses the form pavus.[4][5]
  • 116–27 BC – Varro uses it.[5]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero mentions peacock as food.[6][5]
  • c. 1300 – English peacock is recorded.[10]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A peacock, peafowl.[2][1]
  2. (Medieval Latin) A brightly coloured cloth; a bier.[5][9]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ 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. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  6. ^ a b c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  7. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
  8. ^ Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911).
  9. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
  10. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com