Etymologically
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plasma

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Forms

plasma n (genitive plasmatis); third declension[1][2] A first-declension feminine plasma, plasmae also occurs, in Commodian and other Christian texts.[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek πλάσμα (plásma, “something formed or moulded; a fiction”).[1][4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Persius is its first author: he mocks a reciter who will read from a high seat after rinsing his supple throat liquidō cum plasmate, with a liquid trill.[3][2][5]

Semantic evolution

Among the Classical authors it is an affected, singsong modulation of the voice in reading or declaiming:[1][2] Quintilian wants verse read in a manly way, not plasmate effēmināta “made womanish by trilling”, as most do now.[3][2] The scholiasts on Persius were unsure of the meaning and also explained it as a drink or a medicine for the voice.[3]

The Old Latin Bible and Christian writers took it in the sense “thing formed”, a creature made by God; the Latin Irenaeus uses it more than fifty times.[3] Prudentius calls Christ the liberator of the enslaved creature.[2] Ausonius and Martianus Capella used it of a fiction, a poet's invention.[2] Medieval Latin kept the creature and creation, and also the act of forming.[6][7]

Timeline

  • 34–62 AD – Persius uses it of a trilling voice.[3][5]
  • c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian condemns reading made womanish plasmate.[3][2][5]
  • 4th century AD – Irenaeus' Latin translator uses it more than fifty times of God's creature.[3][5]
  • c. 310–394 AD – Ausonius uses it of a poet's fiction.[2][5]
  • 348/49–c. 413 AD – Prudentius uses it of the creature made by God.[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. An affected modulation of the voice; a trill.[1][2][3]
  2. (Ecclesiastical Latin) Something formed or moulded; a creature, creation.[2][8][3]
  3. (Late Latin) A fiction, invention.[2]
  4. (Medieval Latin) The act of forming.[6]

Word family

  • plasmō

References

  1. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  6. ^ 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
  7. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
  8. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson