rasura

Forms

rāsūra f (genitive rāsūrae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin rādō (“to scrape, shave”) + -ūra.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lewis & Short's earliest source is Columella, in the 1st century AD, who uses it for scraping a reed.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

From the act of scraping or shaving it came to mean what is scraped off, shavings, as of ivory in Vegetius' veterinary work.^[4][6] Jerome used it figuratively of a scraping of the throat, the harsh guttural sounds of Eastern speakers.^[4][6]

In medieval Latin it meant an erasure in a written text and the tonsure of a cleric,^[7] and in British sources also a scraping in medicine and the clipping of coins.^[8]

Timeline

• 1st century AD – Columella uses it for scraping.^[4][5]
• c. 383–419/420 AD – Jerome uses it of shaving the beard and head, and figuratively of harsh guttural speech.^[4][5]
• c. 400 AD – Vegetius uses it for shavings of ivory.^[4][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Scraping, shaving.^[2][4]
2. (Late Latin) What is scraped off; shavings.^[4][6]
3. (Late Latin, figurative) A harsh, guttural way of speaking.^[4][6]
4. (Medieval Latin) An erasure in a text.^[7]
5. (Medieval Latin) The tonsure.^[7]
6. (Medieval Latin) The clipping of coins.^[8]

Usage notes

Late sources also spell it rāstūra.^[5][8]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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 d e f g h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
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 c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
8. ^ a b c 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