Etymologically
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thermae

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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

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