sagina

Forms

sagīna f (genitive sagīnae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

The origin is unknown.^[2][3] Wiktionary mentions a possible link with Proto-Indo-European *seh₂- (“to satisfy”), the source of Proto-Germanic *sadaz (“full”).^[1] Lewis & Short and Georges compared Ancient Greek σάττω (sáttō, “to stuff full, cram”).^[4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Plautus,^[3] in whom day and night there is eating and drinking and no one saves: sagina plane est, “it is sheer fattening”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Its first sense is the cramming or fattening of animals: Varro writes on the fattening of geese, and Columella and Pliny the Elder on that of hens and snails.^[2][4] Applied to people it is feeding or feasting: Cicero speaks of a man who held the crowd not by authority but by feeding it.^[4][5] It also names the food itself: Varro calls the small fish fed to larger ones sagina viva, “live fodder”.^[2][4] A special use is the rich diet of gladiators and athletes;^[2][4][5] Tacitus has gladiatoria sagina, and Propertius a man who sold his life for the unclean gladiators' fare.^[2][4][5] Plautus uses it of a fatted animal,^[5] and Seneca of fatness and corpulence.^[2] Quintilian speaks figuratively of a kind of nourishment for oratory.^[4] In Church Latin it is food, fodder, nourishment and corpulence,^[6] and in medieval documents it names the season for fattening pigs on acorns and the right of pannage.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, of feasting and of a fatted animal.^[4][5][3]
• 116–27 BC – Varro, of fattening geese and of live fish used as feed.^[2][3]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of feeding the crowd.^[4][3]
• 57/46–12 BC – Propertius, of the gladiators' diet.^[2][3]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca, of corpulence.^[2][3]
• Medieval Latin – The pig-fattening season and the right of pannage.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. The fattening or cramming of animals;^[2][4][1] of people, feeding, feasting.^[4]
2. Food used for fattening, fodder;^[2][4] especially the rich diet of gladiators and athletes.^[2][4]
3. A fatted animal.^[5]
4. Fatness, corpulence.^[2][1]
5. (Medieval Latin) The season for fattening pigs on acorns; the right of pannage.^[7]

Word family

• sagīnārium
• sagīnō
• sagīnātiō
• sagīnātus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill