plinthus

Forms

plinthus m or f (genitive plinthī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek πλίνθος (plínthos, “brick”).^[2][3][4] The origin of the Greek word is unknown: Köbler takes it as a borrowing from an unknown source,^[4] and Beekes counts it Pre-Greek.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Vitruvius is the first to use it, for the square slab at the base of a column.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Vitruvius also used it for the slab at the head of a column that carries the architrave, the abacus.^[2] Among the land surveyors it named a square plot of a hundred iugera: Hyginus says the centuriae were now called plinthi, that is, “little bricks”.^[3] The TLL tentatively traces southern Italian dialect words for a clod of earth (chienta) to it.^[6] English plinth (1610s) comes from French plinthe and directly from Latin.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 84–c. 25 BC – Vitruvius uses it for the base and the abacus of a column.^[2][4]
• 1610s – English borrows it as plinth.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. (architecture) The square slab at the base of a column, a plinth.^[2][3]
2. (architecture) The slab on top of a capital, the abacus.^[2]
3. (land surveying) A square plot of a hundred iugera.^[3][1]

Related words

• English plinth

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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 c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com