salinae

Forms

salīnae f pl (genitive salīnārum); first declension^[1] Wiktionary records the singular salīna, used chiefly in the plural.^[2]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin sāl (“salt”) + -īna.^[1][2] Lewis and Short take it as an adjective with fodīnae “pits” understood.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Cicero, meaning salt pans or salt-works.^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

Caesar, Livy, Columella and Pliny the Elder use it of salt-works.^[3] Livy tells of the Roman salt-works at Ostia that Ancus Martius established, and the name Salīnae also belonged to a district of Rome by the Porta Trigemina.^[3][1] Columella's verse mentions the Salīnae Herculeae near Herculaneum.^[3] Cicero plays on the word and on sal in the sense “wit”, complaining that his agent defends the possessio salinarum mearum, “the property of my salt-works”, carelessly.^[3][5]

The form appears in two inscriptions of the 1st century AD.^[6] In Ecclesiastical Latin it means salt pits or salt-works,^[7] and it lives on in Italian salina.^[8]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of salt-works.^[4][3]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar mentions salt-works in the Civil War.^[3][4]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy tells of the salt-works at Ostia and names a district of Rome Salīnae.^[3][1][4]
• 1–100 AD – It appears in inscriptions.^[6]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder writes of salt-works.^[3][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. Salt pans, salterns, salt-works.^[1][3][7]
2. Salīnae: the salt-works at Ostia; a district of Rome by the Porta Trigemina.^[1][3]
3. (jocular) A store of wit, playing on sal.^[3][5]

Word family

• salīnātor

Related words

• sal

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
6. ^ a b Kaše, Vojtěch; Heřmánková, Petra; Sobotková, Adéla et al. (2024), LIST: Latin Inscriptions in Space and Time, v1.2 (EDCS + EDH), Aarhus: SDAM, doi:10.5281/zenodo.10473706
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier