Etymologically
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piscator

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [pɪsˈkaː.tɔr][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [pisˈkaː.tor][1]

Forms

piscātor m (genitive piscātōris, feminine piscātrīx); third declension[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin piscor (“to fish”) + -tor.[2][3][1] piscor is made from piscis (“fish”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *piski- (“fish”) and Proto-Indo-European *pisk- (“fish”), cognate with Old Irish íasc (“fish”) and Old Norse fiskr (“fish”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it first in Plautus, Terence and Cato;[3] Plautus has it in the Rudens.[5]

Semantic evolution

It is someone who catches and sells fish.[2] Terence lists fishermen with butchers, cooks and sausage-makers, and Cicero tells of a man who calls the fishermen together.[5] Juvenal and Seneca use it, and the jurist Paulus speaks of a fisherman's tackle.[5] Inscriptions record piscatores propolae, fish dealers.[5] The Vulgate's Gospel of Matthew has piscatores hominum, “fishers of men”.[5] Church Latin has “fisherman, angler”.[6] It lives on in Italian pescatore, French pêcheur and Spanish pescador.[3]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus has the word.[3][5][7]
  • 190–159 BC – Terence, in a list of tradesmen.[5][7]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero, of fishermen called together.[5][7]
  • 390–406 AD – The Vulgate, “fishers of men”.[5][7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A fisherman, one who catches and sells fish; an angler.[2][5][1][6]

Word family

  • piscātōrius

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c 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. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  7. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de