Etymologically
Log in

subsellium

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 19 October 2026 at 15:54. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • Classical: [sʊpˈsɛl.li.ũː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [subˈsɛl.li.um][1]

Forms

subsellium n (genitive subselliī or subsellī); second declension[1]

Etymology

It is formed from sub- (“under”) and sella (“seat”) with the suffix -ium, “a low seat”.[2][1] Varro explained it as something not quite a ⟨sella⟩.[3] De Vaan derives ⟨sella⟩ from Proto-Italic *sed-lā- (“seat”), from Proto-Indo-European *sed- (“to sit”), the root of sedeō.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's earliest example is Plautus' Stichus: “I'll sit on the bench”.[2]

Semantic evolution

It is a low seat or bench, of the kind used in an auditorium: in Plautus it is the theatre bench, and by metonymy the spectators.[2] Cicero uses it of the senate benches, which the former consuls left empty when Catiline sat down, and of the tribunes' bench.[2] In the courts it was the bench of the prosecution or the defence, and in the plural the courts themselves, as Cicero's man who withdrew from the crowd and the courts into leisure.[2]

Church Latin glosses it “seat, bench, pew”.[5] In Medieval Latin it also meant a mount.[6]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of benches in the theatre.[2][7]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of the senate and the law courts.[2][7]
  • Medieval Latin – a mount.[6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A low seat, bench, in a theatre, the senate or the tribunes' seat; the spectators.[2][3][1][5]
  2. A bench in a courtroom;[2][1] (plural) the courts.[2][1]
  3. (Ecclesiastical Latin) A pew.[5]
  4. (Medieval Latin) A mount.[6]

Word family

  • subselliārium

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 h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ 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 Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  6. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
  7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de