quinquennium

Forms

quīnquennium n (genitive quīnquenniī or quīnquennī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from quīnque (“five”) and annus (“year”) with the suffix ⟨-ium⟩,^[2][1] or from the adjective quīnquennis (“five years old”).^[3] De Vaan traces quīnque to Proto-Italic *kʷenkʷe and Proto-Indo-European *penkʷe (“five”), and annus to Proto-Italic *atno- (“year”) and Proto-Indo-European *h₂et-no- (“year”), from a root meaning to go, the year being the one that goes round;^[4] he compares Oscan akeneí (“in the year”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler finds it first in Cicero,^[5] whose De legibus prescribes that the censors hold office for five years.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It is a period of five years; by the Roman habit of counting inclusively it could also be a period of four.^[2] Ovid uses the plural poetically, three quinquennia for fifteen years.^[3][1] In Church Latin it keeps the plain sense of a five-year period.^[6]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero of the censors' five-year term.^[3][5]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid of fifteen years as three quinquennia.^[3][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A period of five years, a quinquennium.^[2][3][6][1]
2. (poetic, plural) Used in multiples, as tria quinquennia, fifteen years.^[3][1]

Word family

• quinquennātus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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 e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson