petrosus

Forms

petrōsus (feminine petrōsa, neuter petrōsum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin petra + -ōsus.^[2][1][3] The noun is from Ancient Greek πέτρα (pétra, “rock, cliff”), a word of unknown origin that Beekes considers probably Pre-Greek.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pliny the Elder uses it of a rocky ridge that shuts off a lake from the Maeotis.^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

It is found from Pliny the Elder on, and only in prose.^[3] The neuter plural petrosa was used as a noun, “rocky places”, by Pliny and Ambrose,^[6][7] and in the Vulgate for the stony ground on which some of the seed falls in the parable of the sower.^[6] The Vulgate also has it in the sense “hurling stones”.^[5]

Medieval writers in Britain used it of stony land, which fetched a lower rent, in place names, and of creatures living among rocks.^[8] English petrous, first an anatomical word for something very hard, came from Old French and directly from Latin petrosus about 1400.^[4]

Timeline

• 23–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of rocky places.^[3][9]
• c. 340–397 AD – Ambrose uses the neuter plural for rocky places.^[6][9]
• 390–406 AD – The Vulgate speaks of seed falling on stony ground.^[6][9]
• 1334 – An English inquest values stony land at a low rate.^[8]
• c. 1400 – English borrows it as petrous.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Full of rocks, rocky, stony.^[2][6]
2. (neuter plural as noun) Rocky places, stony ground.^[6][7]
3. (Late Latin) Hurling stones.^[5]
4. (Medieval Latin) Living among rocks.^[8]

Related words

• English petrous

References

1. ^ a b c d 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. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ 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
9. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de