purgamen

Forms

purgāmen n (genitive purgāminis); third declension^[1][2]

Etymology

It is from Latin purgō (“to clean, purify”) + -men.^[1][3] De Vaan lists the verb under agō (“to drive, do”): purgō goes back to the older form pūrigāre, made from pūrus (“clean”), which he traces to Proto-Indo-European *ph₂ú-ro- (“clear, cleansed”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from the Moretum,^[5] where flour is shaken in a sieve and the refuse stays on top.^[1][3]

Semantic evolution

It meant what is cleared away, refuse or sweepings, mostly in the plural:^[1][2] Ovid uses it of the dirt swept out of the temple of Vesta and carried down the Tiber to the sea.^[1][2] It also meant a means of purification: Ovid has Peleus receiving cleansing for a killing, and the waters into which Melampus cast what had purged the madness of the daughters of Proetus.^[1][3] The TLL treats it as an equivalent of purgamentum and finds it almost only in verse.^[3]

Prudentius uses it for the cleansing water of baptism,^[3][6] which Church Latin kept as a sense.^[7] Georges and Conte take another passage of Prudentius, on polished silver, as brightness or purity,^[8][6] which the TLL counts among the uses for the dross of metal.^[3] Venantius Fortunatus uses it of the refuse that Radegund carried out of the kitchen.^[3]

Timeline

• 2nd half of the 1st century BC – The Moretum uses it of the refuse left in a sieve.^[1][5]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of sweepings and of purifications.^[1][5]
• 348/49–c. 413 AD – Prudentius uses it of the water of baptism.^[3][5]
• 536–c. 610 AD – Venantius Fortunatus uses it of kitchen refuse.^[3][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. What is cleaned away, refuse, sweepings (usually plural).^[1][2]
2. A means of purification or expiation.^[1][2]
3. (Late Latin) Brightness, purity (of polished metal).^[8][6]
4. (Ecclesiastical Latin) Baptism, cleansing by water.^[7][6]

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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn