pigmentum

Forms

pīgmentum n (genitive pīgmentī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin pingō (“to paint”) + -mentum (“suffix of means or result”).^[2][1][3] The verb pingō goes back to Proto-Italic *ping-e/o- (“to paint”) and Proto-Indo-European *pi-n-ḱ- (“to paint, adorn”).^[3]

Isidore explained it from pestle and mortar, as if from ⟨piligmenta⟩, because pigments are ground in a mortar (pila) with a pestle (pilum).^[4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus is the first to use it: in the Mostellaria a character says that at that age one should touch no cosmetics at all, neither white lead nor any other paint.^[2][3][6]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Latin it meant any colouring matter: a painter's paint, a dye in which sails were steeped, and the colours that Cicero imagines splashed at random on a panel.^[2][7] Plautus jokes about a hide that Apelles and Zeuxis will paint “with elm-wood paints”, that is, with a beating.^[7][8] Cicero used it figuratively for the colouring or ornament of style,^[2][7] and in medical writers it named an ingredient of an ointment or lotion.^[2]

In Medieval Latin the plural came to mean spices and aromatic plants, and the singular red pepper or spiced wine.^[9][10] English borrowed the Classical sense as pigment.^[11]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it for cosmetics and paint.^[2][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it for paint and for the colouring of style.^[2][7][6]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder speaks of sails dipped in boiling dye.^[7][6]
• late 14th century – English borrows it as pigment, first for a red dye.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A pigment, paint, dye, colouring matter; also a cosmetic.^[2][7]
2. (figurative) Colouring, ornament of literary style.^[2][7]
3. An ingredient of an ointment or lotion, a drug.^[2]
4. (Medieval Latin, chiefly plural) Spices, aromatic plants.^[9][10]
5. (Medieval Latin) Red pepper; spiced wine.^[9]

Word family

• pīgmentārius
• pigmentatus
• auripīgmentum
• pīgmentōsus

Related words

• pictilis
• pictor
• pictōrius
• pictūra
• pictūrātus
• pictus

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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911).
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
10. ^ a b 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
11. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com