porcarius

Forms

porcārius (feminine porcāria, neuter porcārium); first/second-declension adjective^[1] As a noun: porcārius m (genitive porcāriī or porcārī); second declension.^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin porcus + -ārius.^[2][1][3] The noun goes back to Proto-Italic *pork-o- and Proto-Indo-European *pórḱ-o- (“digger, pig”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pliny the Elder uses it of a sow's womb after a proper farrowing, as opposed to one after a miscarriage.^[5][6][7]

Semantic evolution

As an adjective it meant concerned with pigs, their breeding and sale.^[2] As a noun it was a swineherd, first in Firmicus Maternus;^[5][6] the Burgundian law fixes thirty solidi for killing a slave who is a ploughman or a swineherd,^[3] and the swineherd appears in the early medieval law codes.^[8][9]

British Medieval Latin also used it as a surname and, as a feminine or neuter noun, for a pigsty.^[10] The noun lives on in Italian porcaio, Old French porchier, Catalan porquer, Spanish porquero and Portuguese porqueiro.^[3]

Timeline

• 23–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of a sow's womb.^[5][11]
• 343/350 AD – Firmicus Maternus uses it for a swineherd.^[5][11]
• first quarter of the 6th century AD – The Burgundian law fixes the payment for killing a swineherd.^[3][11]
• 1086 – An English charter uses it for a pigsty.^[10]
• 1166 – The Pipe Roll has it as a surname.^[10]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of pigs, concerned with their breeding and sale.^[2][5]

Noun

1. A swineherd.^[5][9][10]
2. (Medieval Latin) A pigsty.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ Köbler, Gerhard, Liber exquisiti xenii: Lexikon frühmittelalterlicher Rechtswörter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
9. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
10. ^ a b c d e 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
11. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de