plaustrum

Forms

plaustrum n (genitive plaustrī); second declension^[1] Cato and Varro write plōstrum.^[2][3] A feminine plural plaustra, -ae is also found.^[3]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[4] The OLD derives it from ⟨*plaud-⟩, the root of plaudō (“to clap, beat”), with the suffix ⟨-trom⟩, and Köbler takes it as “a thing that creaks”.^[2][5] The Thesaurus, following Bruch, thinks the word did not originally have ⟨au⟩, so the form could belong with that verb, but the meanings hardly fit; it suggests a popular formation, or tentatively ⟨*pro-vek-stro-⟩ from provehō (“to carry forward”).^[4] Wiktionary takes ⟨plōstrum⟩ as the original form and ⟨au⟩ as a hypercorrection.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler's first source is Plautus.^[5]

Semantic evolution

It is a wagon or cart, and plaustrum percellere “to upset the wagon” was a proverb for ruining an undertaking.^[2] It also names the constellation of the Great Bear, the Wain, as in Propertius' Boötes who is slow to turn his oxen and wagon, and in Germanicus.^[2]

Church Latin glosses it “cart, wagon”.^[6] Paulus' abridgement of Festus says that a wagon was called veia in Oscan.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus.^[5]
• 234–149 BC – Cato writes plōstrum.^[3][5]
• 57/46–12 BC – Propertius of the constellation.^[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A wagon, cart;^[2][3][1] plaustrum percellere, to upset the apple cart.^[2]
2. The constellation Ursa Major, the Wain.^[2]

Word family

• plaustra
• plaustrālis
• plaustrārius
• plaustrilucus
• plostellum

Related words

• plaudō

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill