soccus

Forms

soccus m (genitive soccī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek σύκχος (súkkhos, “a kind of shoe”),^[1][2][3] a word that Wiktionary takes from Phrygian or another language of Asia Minor;^[1] the OLD compares συγχίς (sunkhís), a word for shoes from Phrygia,^[3] and Köbler calls it a loanword from the East.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler and Lewis & Short find it first in Plautus, in the Trinummus, Epidicus, Bacchides, Persa and Cistellaria.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

It is a low-heeled, loose-fitting shoe or slipper worn by the Greeks:^[3][4] Cicero speaks of the slippers a man had on.^[4] Comic actors wore it, and so it became a symbol of comedy, as opposed to the tragic cothurnus:^[3] Horace says Plautus runs across the stage in a loose sock.^[3] In Church Latin it is a slipper or sock,^[5] and in medieval Latin a wooden sole, a sandal or slipper, and a sock or stocking.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, of Greek slippers.^[4][2]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of a man's slippers.^[4][2]
• 65–8 BC – Horace, of the comic actor's shoe.^[3][2]
• Medieval Latin – A wooden sole, sandal; a sock or stocking.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A low-heeled, light shoe or slipper worn by the Greeks.^[3][4][1]
2. The shoe of comic actors; hence comedy.^[3][1]
3. (Medieval Latin) A wooden sole, a sandal.^[6]
4. (Medieval Latin) A sock, stocking.^[6][5]

Word family

• soccātus
• soccifer
• socculus

Related words

• cothurnus

Usage notes

Niermeyer has a separate medieval soccus (also succus, socus), a ploughshare, of Celtic origin.^[6][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
6. ^ a b c d e Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill