tumultuarius

Forms

tumultuārius (feminine tumultuāria, neuter tumultuārium); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin tumultus (“uproar; sudden rising”) + -ārius.^[2][3] De Vaan puts tumultus with tumeō (“to swell”), from Proto-Indo-European *tum-eh₁- (“to be swelling”), since its meaning suggests this, though the formation of the noun is unclear.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler records it first in the Rhetorica ad Herennium;^[5] Lewis & Short call it not earlier than Augustus and especially frequent in Livy, though they also cite the Bellum Alexandrinum.^[6]

Semantic evolution

It began as a military word for troops raised in haste to meet a tumultus, a sudden rising or emergency,^[2][6] and Livy has a tumultuārius exercitus.^[6][7] From there it means anything made in haste as an emergency measure: a camp, a wall, a bridge, a tribunal held at night, a pyre on which a corpse was half burnt.^[2] Of fighting it means unplanned or haphazard, as in Livy's battles that broke out by chance and his sudden battle in which elephants were of no use;^[2] Gellius uses it of learning picked up in a hurry.^[2] Medieval writers in Britain use it of troops, of a sudden impulse and in the sense “makeshift”.^[8] Italian has tumultuario.^[7]

Timeline

• 86/82 BC – The Rhetorica ad Herennium uses it.^[5]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses it of hastily raised armies and unplanned battles.^[2][6][5]
• c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius uses it of a makeshift pyre.^[2][5]
• c. 165 AD – Gellius uses it of hurried learning.^[2][5]
• 1276 – A Hereford register uses it of a sudden impulse.^[8]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (of troops) Raised in haste to meet a sudden rising or emergency;^[2][6][9] (of military service) done during such a rising.^[2][6][9]
2. Made as an emergency measure, makeshift, improvised.^[2][9][7]
3. (especially of fighting) Unplanned, casual, haphazard.^[2][10]

Related words

• tumultus
• tumultuor
• tumeō

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
4. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b 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
9. ^ a b c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
10. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.