Etymologically
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redimiculum

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Forms

redimīculum n (genitive redimīculī); second declension[1] A masculine plural redimīculī and a late feminine redimīcula also occur.[2][3]

Etymology

It is probably from Latin redimiō (“to bind round, wreathe”) + -culum, an instrument noun.[4][1][5][2] De Vaan notes that it is attested earlier than the verb, which Ernout and Meillet took as a sign that it was based on amiculum (“cloak”) with the prefix red-; he and Wiktionary find this unlikely, because that prefix is not otherwise used to form nouns and the long vowel would be hard to explain.[5][1] The origin of redimiō is itself unclear: a link with Sanskrit यम् (yam-, “to reach, obtain”) is difficult in meaning, and de Vaan suggests that the verb may be a denominative of a noun Proto-Italic *do/em-o/i- (“binding, band”), from Proto-Indo-European *do/emh2-o/i-, related to domō (“to tame”).[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler record it first in Plautus,[5][6] who uses it figuratively of a snare and band that would make a soldier come back.[2][7]

Semantic evolution

The OLD defines it as a band hanging from the back of a headdress, usually a woman's, down to the shoulders on each side.[4] More widely it is any band, fillet or necklace: Cato lists redimicula among the finery of women covered in gold and purple, Lucilius among the things a woman takes out to adorn herself, and Cicero has one town pay for a woman's redimiculum and others for her neck and hair.[2][3] Virgil mentions the bands of the mitre, Ovid the necklaces of a statue, and Juvenal uses it of effeminate men.[3][2][7] Festus says that women call a little chain worn as an ornament redimiculum.[2] In the early Latin Bible it renders the Greek word for necklaces in the Song of Songs, and Cassian uses it of a monk's apron.[2][7] In Ecclesiastical Latin it means a necklace or chaplet.[8]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it figuratively of a band to hold someone.[2][5][6]
  • 234–149 BC – Cato lists it among women's finery.[2][6]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of a woman's headband.[2][3][6]
  • c. 360–c. 435 AD – Cassian uses it of a monk's apron.[7][6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A band hanging from the back of a headdress to the shoulders.[4]
  2. A fillet, necklace, chaplet.[3][7][8]
  3. Figuratively, a band, bond.[7][2]
  4. (Late Latin) A girdle, apron.[7]

References

  1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  3. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e 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 d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  8. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson