Etymologically
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quinquennium

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [kʷiːŋˈkʷɛn.ni.ũː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [kʷiŋˈkʷɛn.ni.um][1]

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