thunnus

Forms

thunnus m (genitive thunnī); second declension^[1] Also spelled thynnus, the OLD's head,^[2] and tunnus, the form in Lucilius.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek θύννος (thúnnos, “tunny”).^[2][4][5] Beekes calls the Greek word Mediterranean: it is often compared with a Hebrew word for a big water animal, a comparison Chantraine rejects, and its feminine in short -α could point to a Pre-Greek origin.^[5] Wiktionary takes the Greek word from Phoenician.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Lucilius, as tunni, for the tunny.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Horace, Ovid, Pliny the Elder and Martial use it for the tunny fish;^[4][3] Pliny once makes it feminine.^[3] It is the source of Italian tonno and French thon,^[1][5] and English tunny comes partly through French and partly from the Latin.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 180–102 BC – Lucilius has the form tunni.^[3][7]
• 65–8 BC – Horace has it in the Satires.^[3][7]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder describes the tunny.^[4][7]
• 1520s – English borrows tunny.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. The tunny, tuna.^[2][4]

Related words

• English tunny
• English tuna

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de