Etymologically
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pompa

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈpɔm.pa][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈpɔm.pa][1]

Forms

pompa f (genitive pompae); first declension[1] It is also spelled ponpa, as in a 6th-century inscription.[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek πομπή (pompḗ, “a sending, escort, solemn procession”),[3][4][1][2] from πέμπω (pémpō, “to send”).[1][5]

Isidore of Seville derived it from the Greek verb πομπεύω (pompeúō), “to be shown in public”.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has a girl whose mother took her to see the procession at the Dionysia, in the Cistellaria.[3]

Semantic evolution

It is a ceremonial procession, at festivals, games, triumphs and weddings, as in Plautus, and at funerals, as Cicero's corpse robbed of its ancestral masks, funeral rites and procession;[3][4] Terence uses it of a train of attendants, and Statius of festivity.[3][4] In colloquial speech it is the array of dishes at a banquet, as Plautus' “you offer me a parade, a larder, drinking bouts”.[3] It is ostentation or display, as Cicero's mocking “there was pomp, there was show” in the In Pisonem.[3][4] Döderlein sets exsequiae, the mourners who follow the dead, against pompa, the show of the funeral procession.[6]

Church Latin glosses it “pomp, procession, parade”,[7] and in medieval Latin it is the vanity or false show of the world or of the devil.[8] English pomp (about 1300) is from it, through Old French and directly.[9]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of the procession at the Dionysia.[3][5]
  • 190–159 BC – Terence of a train of attendants.[3][5]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of funerals and of display.[3][5]
  • c. 1300 – English pomp is from it.[9]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A ceremonial procession, parade; a funeral procession;[3][4][1][7] a retinue.[3]
  2. The array of dishes at a banquet.[3]
  3. Ostentation, display, pomp.[3][4][1][7]
  4. (Medieval Latin) Vanity, the false show of the world or the devil.[8]

Word family

  • pompālis
  • pompāticus
  • pompō
  • pompōsus

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  6. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
  7. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  8. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
  9. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com