trames

Forms

trāmes m (genitive trāmitis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is a compound of trāns (“across”) and the root of meō (“to go, pass”), from Proto-Italic *trans-mit- (“going across”), like sēmita (“path”) from *sē-mit- (“going aside”).^[2][3] De Vaan derives the verb from Proto-Indo-European *h₂mei-o- (“to exchange”), through a shift from changing to changing places and going past, and compares Middle Welsh tremyn (“to go past”).^[2][1] Lewis & Short connected it with Ancient Greek τέρμα (térma, “goal”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first example is a fragment of Plautus quoted by Varro: “I began to go home by the path on the right”.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

It is a footpath or track, especially a cross-path or by-way as opposed to a high road: Cicero writes of a man who left in his general's cloak, not along roads but along side-tracks, and Sallust that Catiline tried to flee secretly by tracks.^[4][3] Virgil uses it of the bed of a stream, and Propertius of the course of the stars.^[3] Mela calls the Isthmus a narrow strip of land, and Gellius uses it of the branches of a family.^[3] In Church Latin it is a path, course or by-way.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a path home.^[3][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of leaving along side-tracks.^[4][6]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of the bed of a stream.^[3][6]
• 43/44 AD – Mela of a narrow strip of land.^[3][6]
• c. 165 AD – Gellius of the branches of a family.^[3][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A footpath, track, by-way; the bed of a stream; the course along which something moves.^[3][4][1]
2. A narrow strip of land.^[3]
3. A branch of a family.^[3]

Related words

• sēmita
• meō
• trāns

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
6. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de