thia

Forms

thīa f (genitive thīae); first declension^[1] Also spelled ⟨tia⟩ and ⟨thya⟩.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek θεία (theía, “aunt”),^[1][3][2] the feminine of the word that gave thius “uncle”.^[4] A glossary notes that it is a Greek word.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Conte and VoLat find it first in Rufinus' Church History;^[6][7] the CGL compares the Greek θείᾳ at that place in Eusebius.^[5]

Semantic evolution

It was the everyday word for “aunt” in Late and Medieval Latin, in the place of classical amita (father's sister) and mātertera (mother's sister).^[2][5] The second Council of Braga uses it,^[8][4] and in a letter of Gregory the Great some manuscripts read Patheriae thiae meae, “my aunt Pateria”, where others have amitae;^[8] Conte cites the passage under this word.^[6] Spanish charters speak of land given by tia mea.^[8] The glossaries render it now by amita, the father's sister,^[5][3] now by mātertera, the mother's sister;^[5][3] Niermeyer gives the father's sister,^[2] and an English glossary of the later Middle Ages glosses it “aunt, mother's sister”.^[3] It lives on in Italian zia, Spanish tía, Portuguese tia and Catalan tia.^[1][2]

Timeline

• c. 345–411/412 AD – Rufinus uses it in his Church History.^[6][4]
• 563 – The second Council of Braga uses it.^[8][4]
• 540–604 AD – Gregory the Great writes of his aunt Pateria, in the reading of some manuscripts.^[8][6][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (Late Latin, Medieval Latin) An aunt, especially a father's sister.^[2][1][6][3]
2. (Medieval Latin) A mother's sister.^[5][3]

Related words

• thius

Usage notes

The OLD and Lewis & Short also record the proper name Thīa, from Greek Θεία: the wife of Hyperion and mother of Eos, or of the Sun in Catullus.^[9][10] Pliny the Elder and Pomponius Mela name an island Thia.^[10][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
3. ^ a b c d e f g 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
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 Goetz, Georg (1888–1923), Corpus glossariorum Latinorum, Leipzig: Teubner; vols. VI–VII Thesaurus glossarum emendatarum, digital ed. CGLO, Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ a b c d e Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ VoLat: Vocabolario della Lingua Latina (2018), Milan: Hoepli
8. ^ a b c d e du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.