semipes

Forms

sēmipēs m (genitive sēmipedis); third declension^[1][2]

Etymology

It is from Latin sēmi- (“half”) + pēs (“foot”).^[1][3][4] The prefix goes back to Proto-Indo-European *sēm-i (“in one”), whose meaning shifted to “one of two” and then “half”;^[5] pēs continues the Indo-European word for the foot, Proto-Indo-European *pōd-s.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its earliest use is as a measure of length in Cato's De agricultura,^[1][2][3] where a hole half a foot across is to be made in a wheel.^[1]

Semantic evolution

As a linear measure of half a foot it belongs to the writers on agriculture and building: Varro, Vitruvius, Columella and Pliny the Elder use it for the breadth of boards, the depth of soil and the size of trenches.^[1][2] In the Digest, Ulpian uses it of the half foot of ground that each of two neighbours contributes for a party wall.^[1]

In prosody it is half a metrical foot: Gellius reports Varro's observation that in the hexameter the fifth half-foot always ends a word,^[1][4] and Terentianus Maurus, Ausonius and Augustine in his De musica use it in the same way.^[1][4] Prudentius uses it as an adjective of a man with one leg cut off, “half-footed”.^[4][6][7]

Medieval British writers kept the measure and the metrical sense, the latter in Bede; a gloss also uses it of someone deformed in one foot.^[8]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato gives a measure of half a foot.^[1][3]
• 116–27 BC – Varro uses it for the breadth of a board and, as Gellius reports, for half a metrical foot.^[1][3]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder gives the depth of trenches in it.^[1][3]
• before 223 AD – Ulpian uses it of half a foot of ground for a party wall.^[1][3]
• 348/49–c. 413 AD – Prudentius uses it of a man with one leg.^[4][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. Half a foot, as a measure of length.^[1][2]
2. (law) Half a foot of ground (contributed for a party wall).^[1]
3. (prosody) Half a metrical foot.^[1][4]
4. (adjective, Late Latin) Having one foot or leg, lame.^[4][6]

Usage notes

Georges records a by-form sēmipedius in Marius Victorinus.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon 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 Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
5. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
7. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press