pistor

Forms

pī̆stor m (genitive pī̆stōris, feminine pī̆strīx); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin pīnsō (“to pound”) + -tor.^[2][1][3] De Vaan traces pīnsō to Proto-Italic *pins- (“to grind”) and the nasal present Proto-Indo-European *pi-n-s- (“to grind”), comparing Sanskrit पिनष्टि (pináṣṭi, “crushes, grinds”) and Ancient Greek πτίσσω (ptíssō, “to winnow, bray”).^[4] Varro counts it among native Latin words.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Plautus,^[5] who uses it only of the miller who grinds grain.^[6]

Semantic evolution

It was first the one who pounded spelt in a mortar or ground it in a hand-mill;^[2][6] Varro says no one was called pistor except the man who pounded flour in the mill.^[2][6] The TLL notes that the pounders kept the name when they came to bake bread.^[3] Pliny the Elder says there were no bakers at Rome until the war with Perseus: the citizens made their own bread, which was women's work.^[6] In the classical period it is a baker, as in Varro's wish that your baker make good bread, and Cicero lists cooks, bakers and litter-bearers among common trades.^[6] At Rome the bakers formed a guild.^[6] It was a surname of Jupiter, who, when the Romans were besieged on the Capitol, gave them the idea of throwing bread at the Gauls as if they had plenty.^[6] Martial and Petronius use it of pastry-cooks.^[6] Church Latin glosses it baker.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of millers.^[6][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of bakers among the trades.^[6][5]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid of Jupiter Pistor.^[6][5]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder on the first bakers at Rome.^[6][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. One who pounds grain, a miller.^[2][6][1]
2. A baker; a pastry-cook.^[2][6][1][7]
3. Pistor: a surname of Jupiter.^[6]

Word family

• pistōrius
• pī̆strīx
• pī̆strīnum

Related words

• pīnsō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson