raphanus

Forms

raphanus m (genitive raphanī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek ῥάφανος (rháphanos).^[2][1][3] In Greek the word meant cabbage in Attic and radish in later writers, while the usual Greek word for the radish was ῥαφανίς (rhaphanís),^[4][5] which Saalfeld gives as the source of the Latin word.^[6] Wiktionary suggests a link with ῥάπυς (rhápus) and ῥάφυς (rháphus, “turnip”).^[1] Beekes holds that a plant name found only in Europe, and in several variant forms, cannot be inherited from Proto-Indo-European, and takes it as a loan or a substrate word, comparing rāpum “turnip”.^[4] Köbler likewise compares Proto-Indo-European *rāp- (“turnip”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first author is Cato the Elder, who gives advice on sowing radishes in his treatise on farming.^[7][8][3]

Semantic evolution

The Romans used it for the cultivated radish, which Pliny the Elder discusses at length.^[2][5][9] Raphanus agria was a wild plant, perhaps a kind of spurge or charlock.^[2] Catullus alludes to the radish as a punishment for adulterers.^[10] Palladius uses it, as a feminine, in the Attic sense of cabbage.^[10][9]

In medieval Britain it remained the name of the radish: an Old English gloss renders it as rædic, and Alexander Neckam equates it with Latin radix.^[11] The word lives on in Italian rafano and Sicilian rafanu.^[1]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato the Elder writes about sowing radishes.^[7][8][3]
• 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus alludes to the radish as a punishment for adulterers.^[10][3]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder describes the radish at length.^[9][5][3]
• end of the 4th or beginning of the 5th century AD – Palladius uses it for cabbage.^[10][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A radish.^[2][9]
2. raphanus agria: a wild plant, perhaps a kind of spurge or charlock.^[2]
3. (feminine) Cabbage.^[10]

Usage notes

Lewis & Short and Gaffiot give it as masculine, with a feminine in Palladius;^[9][8] the OLD heads it as feminine.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ a b Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
7. ^ a b Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
9. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
11. ^ Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press