scopulus

Forms

scopulus m (genitive scopulī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek σκόπελος (skópelos, “lookout place, peak, rock”).^[2][1][3][4] Saalfeld explains the Greek word as a high place from which one can look far around, from σκοπέω (skopéō, “to look out”);^[3] Wiktionary compares Latin specula (“watchtower”), from a related root.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Saalfeld and Köbler find it first in Ennius' Annals, in the figurative “rocks of the Muses”;^[3][5][4] the OLD's first example is Turpilius' “the rocks of the sea, the roar, the loneliness”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is a projecting rock in the sea or on the coast, a danger to ships, as in Caesar, where rowers were dashed against the rocks.^[2][3] Figuratively it is a danger or source of ruin: Ennius already speaks of “the rocks of the Muses”, Terence of carrying someone from calm water onto a rock, and Cicero often uses the figure.^[4][3] Inland it is a crag (Virgil), a type of stubbornness, as Horace's lover “deafer than the rocks”, and a boulder hurled by Etna.^[2]

Church Latin glosses it “rock, cliff, crag”.^[6]

Timeline

• 204–169 BC – Ennius in the Annals.^[3][5]
• 2nd century BC – Turpilius of rocks in the sea.^[2][5]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar of rocks wrecking rowers.^[3][5]
• 65–8 BC – Horace of stubbornness.^[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A projecting rock, crag, cliff, especially in the sea.^[2][1][4]
2. (figurative) A danger, a source of ruin.^[2][4]
3. An inland crag; a type of hardness or deafness.^[2]
4. A boulder.^[2]

Word family

• scopulōsus

Related words

• saxum
• rūpēs
• specula

Usage notes

Döderlein counts it among the words for large masses of stone, beside saxum, rūpēs and cautēs.^[7]

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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
4. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper