Etymologically
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polus

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈpɔ.ɫʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈpɔː.lus][1]

Forms

polus m (genitive polī); second declension[1] Germanicus has the Greek accusative polon.[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek πόλος (pólos, “axis, pole of the sky”).[2][1][3] Köbler connects the Greek word with πέλομαι (pélomai, “to move”) and Proto-Indo-European *kʷel- (“to turn”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first example in the OLD is Accius, of the sky: “pass through the heavens, bright stars of the world”.[2][4]

Semantic evolution

In astronomy it is the end of the axis on which the heavens turn, as Cicero's Aratea and Pliny's two poles, the pole star in Vitruvius, and in Lucan the hemisphere under either pole.[2][3] In the poets it is the sky or heavens, the sky of a region, as Lucan's Libyan sky, and the abode of the gods, as Virgil's “glide down from heaven, nymph”.[2] Lewis and Short call it poetic and post-Augustan.[3] In Hyginus Polus is a Titan.[2]

Church Latin glosses it “sky, heaven, pole of the earth”.[5]

Timeline

  • 170–c. 90 BC – Accius of the sky.[2][4]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of the pole of the heavens.[2][4]
  • 70–19 BC – Virgil of the abode of the gods.[2][4]
  • c. 84–c. 25 BC – Vitruvius of the pole star.[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A pole (of the axis of the heavens); the pole star; the hemisphere under a pole.[2][1][3]
  2. (poetic) The sky, the heavens; the abode of the gods.[2][1][5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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 e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  5. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson