Etymologically
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tabella

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [taˈbɛl.la][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [taˈbɛl.la][1]

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

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