tabella

Forms

tabella f (genitive tabellae); first declension^[1] The Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus has the old nominative plural tabelai.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is the diminutive of tabula (“board, tablet”), formed with -ella.^[2][1][3] The origin of ⟨tabula⟩ is uncertain: de Vaan sets up Proto-Italic *taf/þlā- (“board”) and, following Southern, a root ⟨*teh₂-⟩ “to stand” (without the ⟨s⟩ of stō) with the instrument suffix ⟨*-dʰlo-⟩, “that which stands”; he compares Umbrian tafle (“a vessel for carrying the sacrificial fire”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus, Bacchides, asks for stilum, cēram et tabellās, “a stylus, wax and tablets”.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

A tabella is a small flat board (Varro: the shield is made of small boards) or a plaque of other material, a board for games (Ovid), and a placard or notice.^[2] In public life it is the voting tablet: of acquittal or condemnation in the courts (Cicero's iūdiciālis tabella), for a candidate at an election, and for or against a law in the assembly, as when tablets were handed out with none marked utī rogās, “as you propose”.^[2] It is also a painted panel, a picture, and especially a votive picture offered to a god after escape from danger (Ovid).^[2] In the plural tabellae are wax-coated writing tablets bound together, a notebook, and any written document, a letter or contract: Cicero mentions tablets of an agreement sealed by several respectable men.^[2][1]

Church Latin glosses it “small table, tablet, flat board”;^[5] in medieval Latin it is also a money-changer's desk.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of writing tablets.^[2][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of voting tablets and of a sealed contract.^[2][7]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid of a game board, a placard and a votive picture.^[2][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small board, tablet, plaque.^[2][1][5]
2. A board for games.^[2]
3. A placard, notice, signboard.^[2][1]
4. A voting tablet, ballot.^[2][1]
5. A painted panel, picture; a votive picture.^[2]
6. (plural) Writing tablets, a notebook; a letter, contract, document.^[2][1]
7. (Medieval Latin) A money-changer's desk.^[6]

Word family

• tabellārius
• tabelliō

Related words

• tabula
• tabulātum

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p 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. ^ 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 Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
6. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de