Etymologically
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regulus

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈreː.ɡʊ.ɫʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈrɛː.ɡu.lus][1]

Forms

rēgulus m (genitive rēgulī); second declension[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin rēx (“king”) + -ulus, a diminutive, “little king”.[2][1][3] De Vaan traces rēx to Proto-Italic *rēg- (“king”) and Proto-Indo-European *h₃rēǵ-s (“ruler, king”), cognate with Old Irish rí (“king”) and Sanskrit राज् (rā́j-, “king”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler date it from Varro,[4][5] who uses it of the queen bee: the beekeeper must see that there are not several “kings” in a hive.[2]

Semantic evolution

It is a king of a small territory, a petty king or chieftain, a word Lewis & Short call frequent in the historians but absent from Caesar and Cicero.[2][6] Sallust and Livy use it often, and Tacitus speaks of the chieftains of the Cilicians.[6] Livy also applies it to a king's son, the son of Masinissa.[2] In Late Latin it is also a kind of serpent, the basilisk, a meaning taken over from Greek βασιλίσκος (basilískos, “little king”),[1][7] and Wiktionary also gives the bird called kinglet or wren.[1] The bright star in Leo was called Regulus in Modern Latin, apparently first by Copernicus, probably translating the Greek name.[8]

Timeline

  • 116–27 BC – Varro, of the queen bee.[2][4][5]
  • 86–34 BC – Sallust, of petty kings.[6][5]
  • 59 BC–17 AD – Livy, of chieftains and of a king's son.[2][6][5]
  • 98–115 AD – Tacitus, of the chieftains of the Cilicians.[6][5]
  • 1550s – Regulus as the name of a star in Leo.[8]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A king of a small territory, a petty king, chieftain, prince.[2][6][1][7]
  2. A king's son.[2]
  3. The queen bee.[2]
  4. (Late Latin) A kind of serpent, the basilisk.[1][7]
  5. A small bird, the kinglet or wren.[1]

Usage notes

With a capital, Rēgulus was a cognomen in several Roman families, above all that of Marcus Atilius Regulus, the general of the First Punic War who was captured by the Carthaginians and chose to return to punishment rather than break his word.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 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 d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  6. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com