recurvus

Forms

recurvus (feminine recurva, neuter recurvum); first/second-declension adjective^[1][2] Late manuscripts also spell it recurbus.^[3]

Etymology

It is from Latin re- (“back”) + curvus (“curved, bent”).^[1][4] The TLL derives it instead from the verb recurvō (“to bend back”).^[3] De Vaan calls the origin of the simple adjective uncertain: he reconstructs Proto-Italic *ku/orwo- and thinks the best match is a Celtic word for “hooked”, Old Irish corr, with Ancient Greek κυρτός (kurtós, “curved”) perhaps from the same root.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler and the TLL record it first in Virgil,^[4][3] who uses it once, of a horn.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

Lewis & Short call it a poetic word of the Augustan age that also appears in later prose.^[2] Ovid has it about fifteen times,^[3] of horns, the curved sterns of ships, the fibres of roots, the windings of ivy, fishhooks and a dolphin's back, and of the Labyrinth.^[2] In verse it mostly stands at the end of a hexameter or before the last word of a pentameter.^[3] Prose writers use it from Celsus on,^[3] and Pliny the Elder uses it of shells.^[2] The OLD also records the neuter used as a noun for a passage that doubles back on itself.^[1] British Medieval Latin writers use it of the curved horn of a shepherd's trumpet (Bede), of the curved beaks of hawks and of the shepherd's crook or pastoral staff.^[6]

Timeline

• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it once, of a horn.^[3][2][4]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid makes it a common poetic word.^[3][2][4]
• 14–37 AD – Celsus, the first prose author to use it.^[3][4]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder, of shells.^[2][4]
• Medieval Latin – of a shepherd's crook or pastoral staff.^[6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Bent back on itself, curved round, hooked.^[1][2]
2. (neuter as a noun) A passage that doubles back on itself.^[1]
3. (Medieval Latin) Of a crook or pastoral staff: curved at the top.^[6]

Related words

• curvus
• curvō

Usage notes

Lewis & Short give reduncus and repandus as synonyms.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ 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