tuber

Forms

tūber n (genitive tūberis); third declension^[1] Celsus has the ablative singular tūberī.^[2]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[3] Wiktionary takes it as inherited from Proto-Italic *tūβos, from Proto-Indo-European *tewh₂- (“to swell”),^[1][4] and the OLD compares tumeō (“to swell”).^[2] De Vaan finds no good etymology: the word might reflect a root for swelling, but its suffix is hard to explain, and the forms of similar shape, Ancient Greek τύφη (túphē), a plant used to stuff pillows, and Old Norse þúfa (“knoll, hillock”), differ in meaning or suffix and do not look Indo-European.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Terence on.^[3][4] In the Adelphoe someone complains that his whole head is one lump from blows: colaphis tuber est totum caput.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is a swelling or protuberance on the body, natural or from disease, as the hump of a camel in Pliny the Elder,^[2][5] and in medicine a hard tumour, as in Horace's line about a friend's warts and tumours.^[2] As tūber terrae or alone it names a truffle, as in Martial, and a plant with a tuberous root, the cyclamen, in Pliny.^[2][1] In Church Latin it is a hump or swelling.^[6]

Timeline

• 190–159 BC – Terence, of a head swollen with blows.^[2][4]
• 65–8 BC – Horace, of tumours.^[2][4]
• 40–102/103 AD – Martial, of the truffle.^[2][4]
• 1660s – English borrows tuber as a botanical term.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hump, swelling, protuberance.^[2][5][1]
2. (medicine) A hard tumour.^[2]
3. A truffle (also tūber terrae).^[2][1]
4. A plant with a tuberous root, the cyclamen.^[2][1]

Word family

• tūberātus
• tūberculum
• tūberō
• tūberōsus
• extūberō
• prōtūberō

Related words

• tumeō
• English tuber
• English truffle

Usage notes

A separate, rarer tuber, with a short u, is a fruit tree, perhaps the azarole, and its fruit (feminine for the tree, masculine for the fruit), found in Pliny the Elder, Columella and Martial;^[5][1] the OLD files it under tubur.^[2] Köbler calls it probably a foreign word whose fruit came from Africa only in AD 36.^[4] Etymonline traces English truffle, through French, to Late Latin tufera, a word related to this one.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com