rudens

Forms

rū̆dēns m (genitive rū̆dentis); third declension^[1] Plautus scans it with long ū once; it is feminine in Plautus' Rudens and perhaps in Vitruvius.^[2] The ablative singular is usually rudente, but Vitruvius has rudentī, and the genitive plural rudentium beside the usual rudentum.^[2][3]

Etymology

The origin is unknown.^[2][3] Köbler mentions Walde and Hofmann's tentative Proto-Indo-European *wrūdō,^[4] and Wiktionary lists proposals linking it with German Riemen (“strap”) or with Ancient Greek ἐρύω (erúō, “to drag, draw”).^[1] The ancients derived it from rudō (“to bray, roar”), from the rattling of the ropes, as Nonius reports.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Plautus,^[4] whose comedy Rudens, “The Rope”, is named after it.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is any of the ropes of a ship, those about the mast or for raising the sails;^[2] Lewis & Short call it very frequent and classical.^[3] In the plural it is the rigging.^[1] Vitruvius uses it of a rope outside a nautical setting, as a pulley at the head of a machine held by a rope.^[2] In Church Latin it is a rope or cord.^[5] Döderlein distinguishes fūnis, a thicker rope for pulling, from restis, a thinner one for tying.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, in the Rudens.^[2][4]
• c. 84–c. 25 BC – Vitruvius, of a rope on a machine.^[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A ship's rope, halyard, stay or sheet.^[2][3][1]
2. In the plural: rigging, cordage.^[1]
3. Any rope or cord.^[2][5]

Related words

• fūnis
• restis

Usage notes

Lewis & Short also list rudēns as the present participle of rudō.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
6. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper