Etymologically
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sagina

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [saˈɡiː.na][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [saˈd͡ʒiː.na][1]

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