scapha
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Pronunciation
Forms
scapha f (genitive scaphae); first declension[1]
Etymology
It is borrowed from Ancient Greek σκάφη (skáphē, “light boat, skiff”).[2][3][4][1][5] Köbler connects the Greek word with σκάπτω (skáptō, “to dig”) and the root Proto-Indo-European *(s)kā̆p- (“to cut, split”).[5]
Earliest recorded meaning
Köbler dates it from Plautus,[5] whose Rudens has women jump from a ship into a skiff.[3]
Semantic evolution
It means a light boat or skiff, especially a ship's boat;[2][3] Cicero, Livy and Horace use it.[3] Church Latin keeps the sense boat or skiff.[6]
Timeline
- c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of women leaping from a ship into the skiff.[3][5]
- 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it.[3][5]
- 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses it.[3][5]
Meanings
Noun
Word family
- scaphārius
- scaphula
Usage notes
Döderlein groups it with cymba and linter as skiffs and wherries for short distances, against nāvis, a ship for long voyages, and nāvigium, the general word for a vessel.[7] Scapha is also the name of an old maid in Plautus' Mostellaria.[1]
References
- ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
- ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
- ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
- ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper