pegma

Forms

pēgma n (genitive pēgmatis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek πῆγμα (pêgma, “anything fastened together, framework”).^[2][3][1] The Greek noun is a derivative of πήγνυμι (pḗgnumi, “to fix, join, make solid”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Cicero's letters to Atticus, where the pegmata are bookcases: nothing, he writes, is more charming than they are once the books have been brightened with labels.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

Besides a bookcase or any fixture of boards belonging to a house,^[2][6] the word named a movable or temporary platform or scaffold used in the theatre and the arena, in building and for other purposes.^[2] L&S describe it as a piece of stage machinery that rose and sank by itself and lifted performers into the air.^[6] Pliny the Elder reports that the emperor Gaius had a pegma brought into the circus.^[2]

In medieval Latin from Britain it named an elevated platform and, in Osbern of Gloucester's word list, a bauble or a small device for weighing,^[7] and Du Cange records it as a wooden structure on which statues were set up.^[8]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses pegmata of bookcases.^[2][5]
• c. 15 BC–c. 50 AD – Phaedrus tells of a flute player who fell when the pegma was moved.^[2][5]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca mentions engineers who invent pegmata that rise by themselves.^[2][5]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of a stage structure in the circus.^[2][5]
• before 223 AD – Ulpian counts pegmata among the fixtures that go with a house when it is sold.^[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bookcase or a similar wooden fixture in a house.^[2][6]
2. A movable or temporary platform or scaffold, especially a piece of stage machinery in the theatre or arena.^[2][6][9]
3. (Medieval Latin) An elevated platform.^[7]
4. (Medieval Latin) A bauble; a small instrument for weighing.^[7]
5. (Medieval Latin) A wooden structure for setting up statues.^[8]

Usage notes

The Appendix Probi lists pegma non peuma, censuring a spoken form peuma.^[10][11] Prudentius' manuscripts also spell it pigma.^[11]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
4. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
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 d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre
9. ^ Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
10. ^ Appendix Probi, a late antique list of correct and censured Latin word forms ("calida non calda"); ed. H. Keil, Grammatici Latini IV, Leipzig 1864, 197–199.
11. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften