testu

Forms

testū̆ n (genitive testūs or testū); fourth declension^[1] It also appears as testum, genitive testī, of the second declension.^[2][3] Georges and Conte treat testū as indeclinable.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is from Latin testa (“piece of baked clay, earthenware vessel”).^[1][6] The OLD only compares that noun,^[2] and de Vaan lists this word among its derivatives.^[7] He rejects a derivation of the noun from the root Proto-Indo-European *teḱ- (“to build”) and thinks it is probably a loanword, as words for vessels often are.^[7] Georges suggested that it stands for an older ⟨tostu⟩, just as he explained the noun as ⟨tosta⟩.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and the OLD record it first in Cato,^[7][2] who tells the reader to bake bread gently on a hot hearth under a testu: panem in foco caldo sub testu coquito leniter.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

It was an earthenware pot or, especially, an earthenware lid placed over food to be cooked and heaped with hot coals, as Cato describes for bread and cakes.^[2][3] Varro uses it of a pot in which something was cooked, and Ovid of a broken pot in which a country woman carries fire.^[2][5] The Rhetorica ad Herennium imagines Prometheus going round his neighbours with a testum to beg embers.^[2] Pliny the Elder heats pig dung under one and also mentions a lid of bronze, sub aereo testo.^[2][3] Sulpicius Severus uses the form testum of anything made of baked earth.^[4] In Gregory of Tours and in medieval Latin testum means the skull, the head.^[5][8]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato uses it of the lid for baking bread.^[2][6]
• 116–27 BC – Varro uses it of a cooking pot.^[2][6]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of a broken pot carrying fire.^[2][6]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder mentions a lid of bronze.^[2][3][6]
• 538/539–594 AD – Gregory of Tours uses testum of the skull.^[5][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. An earthenware pot.^[2][3][5]
2. An earthenware lid placed over food to be cooked and heaped with hot coals; also such a lid of metal.^[2][3][5]
3. (Late Latin) Anything made of baked earth.^[4]
4. (Late Latin, Medieval Latin) The skull, the head.^[5][8]

Word family

• testuācium

Related words

• testa
• testūdō

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
5. ^ a b c d e f g Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill