strages

Forms

strāgēs f (genitive strāgis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed on the root of sternō (“to spread, strew; to lay low”), extended with ⟨-g-⟩, with the ending of caedēs (“slaughter”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan derives ⟨sternō⟩ from Proto-Italic *sterna- and Proto-Indo-European *st(e)r-n-h₃- (“to spread, strew”), cognate with Sanskrit स्तृणाति (stṛṇā́ti, “spreads out, strews”), Ancient Greek στόρνυμι (stórnumi, “to spread”) and Old Irish sernaid (“spreads”); the stem ⟨strāg-⟩ seems recent, its ⟨-g-⟩ probably taken from nouns such as compāgēs and ambāgēs.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Lucretius,^[4] whose flooding river makes havoc with a great roar and rolls huge rocks under its waves.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is the overthrow of things, devastation of lands and ruin of buildings, and of living beings slaughter, especially in battle: in Virgil bears have never spread such death and havoc in the woods.^[2] It also names the confused heap that violence leaves behind: Livy's camp littered with things abandoned in the night's panic, and the heaps of the slain in Virgil.^[2] Lewis and Short note that it is rare before the Augustan age, frequent in Livy, and absent from Caesar.^[5]

Church Latin has it for slaughter, massacre.^[6]

Timeline

• 96–55 BC – Lucretius of a river's havoc.^[2][3]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, in his poem on his consulship.^[2][3]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of slaughter and heaps of the dead.^[2][3]
• 59 BC–AD 17 – Livy of the wreckage left by a panic.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. Devastation, havoc, overthrow, ruin.^[2][5][1]
2. slaughter, carnage, massacre, especially in battle.^[2][1][6]
3. A confused heap, wreckage; a heap of dead bodies.^[2][5]

Related words

• sternō
• storea
• strāgulus
• strāmen
• strātus
• struō
• torus
• ruīna
• caedēs

Usage notes

Döderlein distinguishes ruīna, the collapse of things built one upon another when their base gives way, from strāgēs, the throwing down of upright bodies by a blow from outside.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b c d 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 c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ 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
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