piceus

Forms

piceus (feminine picea, neuter piceum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin pix (“pitch”) + -eus.^[2][1] That noun goes back to Proto-Italic *pik- and Proto-Indo-European *pik- (“pitch”), and is cognate with Ancient Greek πίσσα (píssa, “pitch”), Lithuanian pìkis and Latvian piķis (“pitch”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Virgil,^[4] who uses it in the Georgics of a pitch-black darkness.^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

It meant both “made of pitch, resinous” and “like pitch”, above all in colour.^[2] In the first sense Ovid has drops of resin from cut bark and Lucan torches smeared with pitchy grease, and Seneca, Lucan and Silius Italicus use it of smoky flames.^[2][6][7] In the second, Virgil has a pitch-black whirlwind, Ovid a pitch-black cloud, Pliny the Elder a thick black rain, Valerius Flaccus black sheep and Martial black teeth;^[2][5] Apuleius sets pitch-black against snow-white,^[2][7] and Ambrose has the pitch-black gloom of thickened air.^[5]

British medieval writers used it of pitchy, smoky places of punishment, of a pitch-black colour, and figuratively of wicked people and things, as when a letter of 799 calls a heretic piceus.^[8] Used as a feminine noun it became picea, the tree.^[1][8] It lives on in Italian piceo.^[6]

Timeline

• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of a pitch-black darkness and whirlwind.^[2][5][4]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of drops of resin.^[2][4]
• 39–65 AD – Lucan uses it of pitchy torches and flames.^[2][4]
• 40–102/103 AD – Martial writes of black teeth.^[5][4]
• 639–709 AD – Aldhelm uses it of pitch-black soot.^[8][4]
• 799 AD – A letter in Alcuin's correspondence calls a heretic piceus.^[8]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Made of pitch, pitchy, resinous;^[2][5] (of flames) pitchy, smoky.^[2]
2. Like pitch in colour or substance, pitch-black.^[2][5]
3. (Medieval Latin) Black in spirit, wicked, corrupt.^[8]

Word family

• picea

Related words

• pix

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b c d e 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