thermae

Forms

thermae f pl (genitive thermārum); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek θέρμαι (thérmai, “hot springs”),^[1][2] the plural of the Greek adjective θερμός (thermós, “warm”) used as a noun.^[3][4] Lewis & Short explain it as short for aquae, the same as Greek “warm waters”.^[5] Köbler takes the Greek word back to Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰer- (“hot, warm”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero has Thermae only as the name of a town in Sicily with warm baths.^[5][3] As a common noun, “hot baths”, Georges and Lewis & Short cite Seneca first.^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

It names the hot baths of Rome, usually a public building with gymnasiums and other amenities: Pliny the Elder mentions the baths of Agrippa, Martial those of Nero.^[1][5] Juvenal uses it for a shop selling hot drinks, a thermopolium.^[5][3] Church Latin keeps both baths and hot springs.^[6] In British medieval Latin it is a natural hot spring, hot water, and a bath or bathing complex, as at Bath.^[7]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero, as the name of the Sicilian town Thermae.^[5][3][4]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca, of hot baths.^[3][5][4]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder, of the baths of Agrippa.^[5][4]
• 40–102/103 AD – Martial, of the baths of Nero.^[5][4]
• Medieval Latin – A natural hot spring; the baths at Bath.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. Hot baths, usually a public building with gymnasiums and other amenities.^[1][5][3]
2. Warm springs.^[5][6]
3. A shop selling hot drinks, a thermopōlium.^[5][3]
4. (Medieval Latin) A natural hot spring; hot water.^[7]

Word family

• thermensis
• thermulae

Related words

• thermopōlium
• balneum

References

1. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press