Etymologically
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rudens

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈruː.dẽːs], [ˈrʊ.dẽːs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈruː.dens], [ˈruː.dens][1]

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]

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