somnium

Forms

somnium n (genitive somniī or somnī); second declension^[1] Ennius has a genitive plural somnium.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *swopnjom (“dream”), formed on the root of somnus (“sleep”), and possibly inherited from Proto-Indo-European *swópn-yo-m, from the root *swep- (“to sleep”).^[1][3][2] De Vaan derives ⟨somnus⟩ from Proto-Italic *swepno- (“sleep”) and compares Sanskrit स्वप्न्य (svápnya-, “dream, vision”), Old Irish súan (“sleep”) and Ancient Greek ὕπνος (húpnos, “sleep”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus is its first author,^[4] with “the dream I dreamed last night has not turned out false for me” in the Miles gloriosus.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is a dream or vision, as in Plautus, Cicero's De divinatione and Virgil.^[2][5] Figuratively it is an idle hope, fancy or delusion, as Terence's somnium!, “nonsense!”.^[2][1]

Church Latin glosses it “dream”.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a dream come true.^[2][4]
• 190–159 BC – Terence: somnium!, “nonsense!”.^[2][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero on dreams in De divinatione.^[2][5][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A dream, vision.^[2][5][1][6]
2. An idle fancy, daydream, delusion;^[2][1] somnium!, nonsense!^[2][1]

Word family

• somniō
• somniātor
• īnsomnium

Related words

• somnus
• sopor
• sōpiō

Usage notes

Döderlein notes that somnium is the prose word for a dream and īnsomnium the poetic one, and that somnus is the usual word for sleep, sopor the poetic one.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b 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