primitiae

Forms

prīmitiae f pl (genitive prīmitiārum); first declension^[1][2] A singular prīmitia is rare: the Vetus Latina has it, and Commodian uses the ablative.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is from Latin prīmus (“first”) + -tia.^[1][3][5] The TLL notes that most scholars derive it from prīmus, but since in some religious passages it seems to mean the same as praemetium (“first fruits reaped before the general harvest”), it suggests that the word may go back to the root of metō (“to reap”), the sense “beginning” arising later.^[4]

De Vaan traces prīmus to Proto-Italic *prī̆-isamo- (“first”), a superlative built on an adverb meaning “before”, whose Indo-European ancestry he calls uncertain.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it perhaps already in Cato, and certainly in single passages of Gannius and Virgil;^[4] it meant the first fruits of the harvest offered to a god.^[1][2]

Semantic evolution

Ovid writes of spelt cut as first fruits for Ceres, and Pliny the Elder of offering first fruits to the gods.^[2][7] Virgil widened it to any first offering, calling spoils taken from a proud king primitiae, and to beginnings, the “first fruits” of a young man's unhappy first war.^[1][3] Tacitus speaks of the first pieces of unworked metal, Columella of the first shoots of the vine, and Petronius has a primitiis “from the very start”.^[1][7]

The Vulgate uses it in Exodus for first fruits,^[2][7] and it became a common Ecclesiastical word.^[8][4] In medieval Latin it named first fruits brought to the altar, the revenue a church drew from them, and small tithes.^[9] Bede uses it of the first fruits of crops and animals consecrated to God.^[10]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato perhaps uses it, according to the TLL.^[4][11]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of a first offering of spoils and of the beginnings of a war.^[1][11]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of first fruits for Ceres.^[2][11]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus speaks of the first pieces of unworked metal.^[3][7][11]
• 390–406 AD – The Vulgate uses it in Exodus for first fruits.^[2][11]

Meanings

Noun

1. First fruits of the harvest, offered to a god;^[1][2] a first offering of other things.^[1]
2. (figurative) The beginnings, the first results or experience of something.^[1][3][7]
3. a primitiis: from the very start.^[1][7]
4. (Medieval Latin) The revenue a church drew from offerings of first fruits; small tithes.^[9]

Word family

• prīmitīvus

Related words

• prīmus
• prīmitus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b c d e f Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
9. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
10. ^ 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 d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de