struppus

Forms

struppus m (genitive struppī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek στρόφος (stróphos, “twisted band”), in a Latinised form,^[2][1] from στρέφω (stréphō, “to twist”).^[1] Lewis & Short gloss it with στρόφιον (stróphion),^[3] which Festus, quoting Ateius Philologus, gives as the Greek name for the headband.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in Livius Andronicus, in a line quoted by Isidore of Seville: remos iussit religare struppis “he ordered the oars to be tied with thongs”.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Lewis & Short call the word ante-classical.^[3] Besides a twisted cord or strap, as Vitruvius uses it,^[2][3] it named a band or chaplet worn on the head: Festus reports that priests wore it as a mark of office, that some took it for a garland, and that the Faliscans had a festival called Struppearia because people walked about wearing garlands.^[3] At Tusculum, he adds, the word was used for the object placed on the couch of Castor,^[3] and Paul's epitome of Festus describes struppi as bundles of vervain set on the couches of the gods in place of their heads.^[2] Pliny the Elder writes that the ancients called their thinner garlands stroppi, whence strophiola.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 280/260–before 200 BC – Livius Andronicus uses struppi for the thongs that tie oars.^[2][3]
• c. 84–c. 25 BC – Vitruvius uses the word for a strap.^[3][4][5]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses stroppi for thin garlands.^[2][3][5]
• 2nd half of the 2nd century AD – Festus explains it as a priest's headband and a garland.^[2][3][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A twisted cord, thong, strap.^[2][3][4]
2. A kind of chaplet or headband, worn by priests.^[2][3]
3. A small bundle of vervain placed on the couches of the gods.^[2]

Word family

• Struppeāria

Related words

• stroppus
• strophium

Usage notes

The spelling stroppus is found in Festus and Pliny the Elder.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c 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 f g h i j k l m n Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de