purgamentum

Forms

pūrgāmentum n (genitive pūrgāmentī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin pūrgō (“to cleanse”) + -mentum.^[2][3][1] De Vaan, after Dunkel, thinks that pūrgō, early ⟨pūrigāre⟩, contains the word for “fire” rather than pūrus (“clean”), since a compound of the adjective would have kept a long vowel; it would first have meant leading fire about to purify.^[4] He traces that word to Proto-Italic *pūr and Proto-Indo-European *péh₂-ur (“fire”), cognate with Umbrian pir (“fire”) and Ancient Greek πῦρ (pûr, “fire”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Varro has it first,^[5][4] reporting that the Sabines call a means of purifying, februum, a purgāmentum.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Usually in the plural it is what is cleaned away, refuse or filth: Livy calls the Cloaca Maxima the receptacle of all the city's filth, and Tacitus has the refuse of gardens.^[2][6] Pliny the Elder has scraps from a dinner on the floor and onion peelings.^[6] Contemptuously it is the dregs of a class of people, as Curtius' scum of slaves,^[2] and Curtius also calls pearls what the sea throws up, valued at the price that lust sets.^[2] Church Latin has “refuse”.^[7]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro, of a means of purifying.^[2][5]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy, of the city's filth.^[2][5]
• 1st century AD – Curtius, of the scum of slaves.^[2][5]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus, of garden refuse.^[6][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A means of cleansing or purifying.^[2]
2. (usually plural) What is cleaned away, refuse, filth, sweepings.^[2][6][1]
3. (contemptuous) The dregs or scum of a class of people.^[2]
4. What the sea throws up.^[2]

Related words

• pūrgō
• pūrgātiō
• expūrgō
• pūrus

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson