syllabus

Forms

syllabus m (genitive syllabī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

Lewis & Short, Georges and Gaffiot treat it as borrowed from Ancient Greek σύλλαβος (súllabos), citing Augustine's Confessions.^[2][3][4] Köbler connects the Greek word with συλλαμβάνω (sullambánō, “to put together”).^[5] Wiktionary instead explains it as a corruption: the accusative plural ⟨syllabos⟩ appeared for ⟨sittybas⟩, from σιττύβα (sittúba, “parchment label; table of contents”), in a 1470s edition of Cicero's letters to Atticus, influenced by the stem of the Greek verb.^[1] The OED, as Etymonline reports, likewise calls it a misreading.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lewis & Short, Georges and Gaffiot cite it from Augustine's Confessions, meaning a list or register.^[2][3][4][5]

Semantic evolution

The dictionaries gloss it as a list, register or table of contents.^[2][3][4] Stelten records it in ecclesiastical Latin as a register.^[7] Wiktionary labels the sense “list, register, syllabus” as Medieval and New Latin.^[1] English took the word in the 1650s for the outline of a course of lectures.^[6]

Timeline

• 354–430 AD – Augustine's Confessions, in the reading the dictionaries cite.^[2][3][5]
• 1470s – An edition of Cicero's letters to Atticus prints syllabos for sittybas.^[1]
• 1650s – English borrows it as syllabus.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A list, register.^[2][3][7]
2. (Medieval Latin, New Latin) A table of contents; a syllabus.^[1][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ a b c d Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
5. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson