Etymologically
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tabum

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈtaː.bũː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈtaː.bum][1]

Forms

tābum n (genitive tābī); second declension[1] Seneca has a masculine tābus.[2]

Etymology

It belongs with tābēs “wasting” and tābeō “to waste away”.[3][2] De Vaan lists it under tābeō, which he traces to Proto-Italic *tāf-ē- (“to be melting”) and Proto-Indo-European *teh₂-bʰ-eh₁- (“to be melting”), comparing Ancient Greek τήκω (tḗkō, “to melt”).[4] Wiktionary and Köbler give the root as Proto-Indo-European *teh₂- (“to melt”), and Wiktionary counts English thaw among its cognates.[1][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler date it from Ennius,[4][5] whose tragedy, quoted by Cicero, has rocks spattered with gore, matter and black blood.[2]

Semantic evolution

It is corrupt moisture, putrid matter or gore, mostly in poetry and post-Augustan prose: Virgil, Ovid, Horace and Tacitus use it.[2][3] Statius applies it to the dye of the purple-fish.[2] Transferred, it is rarely an infectious disease or plague: Virgil has carcasses dissolving in foul decay and pastures infected, Livy bodies affected by disease, and Ovid bodies pale with bloodless wasting.[2] Church Latin glosses it pestilence, plague, clotted blood or moisture.[6]

Timeline

  • 204–169 BC – Ennius of rocks spattered with gore.[2][4][5]
  • 70–19 BC – Virgil of gore and of plague.[2][5]
  • 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of bodies affected by disease.[2][5]
  • 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid of bodies pale with wasting.[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Putrid matter, corrupt moisture, gore.[3][2][1][6]
  2. (poetic) The dye of the purple-fish.[2]
  3. An infectious disease, plague, pestilence.[2][6]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  3. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c 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 d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  6. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson