rota

Pronunciation

• IPA (Classical): [ˈrɔ.ta]^[1]
• IPA (Ecclesiastical): [ˈrɔː.ta]^[1]

Forms

rota f (genitive rotae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *rotā- (“wheel”), from Proto-Indo-European *Hrot-o- (“revolving”), an adjective from the root *Hret- (“to run, roll”), of which rota is the feminine used as a noun.^[2][1] Scholars differ on the exact derivation.^[1] rotundus “round” is formed from the same root.^[2]

Cognate with Old Irish roth (“wheel”), Welsh rhod (“wheel”), Lithuanian rãtas (“wheel, circle”), Old High German rad (“wheel”) and Sanskrit रथ (rátha-, “chariot”).^[2][3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is attested from Plautus onwards,^[2][5] who calls a cunning slave “more twisty than a potter's wheel”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Its main sense was the wheel of a vehicle, and poets used it for the chariot of the sun or the moon and, in the plural, for a vehicle in motion.^[3][6] It named many machines: the water wheel, the wheel of a hoist, mill wheels, rollers, and the potter's wheel.^[3] It was also the torture wheel, Ixion's wheel in the underworld, and Fortune's wheel.^[3][7] In astronomy it meant the disc of a heavenly body or an imaginary circle in the sky.^[3]

In Church usage the Rota is a tribunal of the papal Curia.^[8][9] The word survives in every Romance language except Vegliote, as French roue and Spanish rueda,^[5] and its verb rotāre is the ultimate source of English rodeo.^[10]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus mentions the potter's wheel.^[3][9]
• 234–149 BC – Cato mentions a water wheel.^[3][9]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius writes of iron-rimmed wheels.^[3][9]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero speaks of the torture wheel and of Fortune's wheel.^[3][9]
• Middle Ages – The Rota becomes the papal court of appeal.^[9][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A wheel of a vehicle, (poetic) a chariot.^[3][6]
2. A wheel in a machine: water wheel, hoist, mill wheel, roller.^[3]
3. A potter's wheel.^[3][6]
4. A wheel of torture, or Fortune's wheel.^[3]
5. The disc of a heavenly body; a circle in the heavens.^[3]
6. (Ecclesiastical Latin) The Rota, a tribunal of the papal Curia.^[8]

Word family

• birotus
• rotalis
• rotāris
• rotella
• rotō
• rotula
• rotulus
• rotundus
• rotābilis
• rotātim
• rotātiō
• rotātor

Related words

• petorritum
• English rotund
• English rodeo
• English rotate

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
5. ^ a b Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom
6. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
8. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
9. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
10. ^ Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com