pristis

Forms

pristis f^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek πρίστις (prístis, “sawfish, sea monster”).^[2][3][1][4] Köbler tentatively connects it with a root Proto-Indo-European *prīs- (“to cut up”).^[4] The variant ⟨pistrix⟩ arose by metathesis, helped by pistrix (“female baker”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Virgil,^[4] whose Aeneid describes a figure that is human in front and ends below in a sea monster: in prīstim dēsinit alvus.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

It named any large sea creature: Pliny the Elder writes of pristes two hundred cubits long in the Indian Ocean and counts the pristis with the whale among the animals that bear live young.^[2][6] The OLD notes that it was sometimes identified with the sawfish.^[2] Florus compares someone who escaped through the middle of the enemy ships to a sea monster.^[2]

It was also the constellation Cetus, the Whale, in Germanicus and Manilius,^[2] and a light oared warship, in Livy;^[2][7] the annalist Claudius Quadrigarius explained that this kind of vessel was named after the sea beast.^[2] In the Aeneid it is the name of a ship in Aeneas' fleet.^[2][1]

Timeline

• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of a sea monster and as the name of a ship.^[2][4]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses it of a light warship.^[2][4]
• 1st century AD – Germanicus and Manilius use it of the constellation Cetus.^[2][4]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder describes the creature in the Indian Ocean.^[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large sea monster or sea creature; a whale, a sawfish.^[2][6]
2. The constellation Cetus, the Whale.^[2][6]
3. A light, swift warship with oars.^[2][7]

Word family

• pistriger

Usage notes

The forms pistrīx and pistris are used in the same senses: Virgil has pistrīx of Scylla, and Cicero's Aratea has it for the constellation.^[6][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
4. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.