tunica

Forms

tunica f (genitive tunicae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is probably a word of Semitic origin, like Ancient Greek χιτών (khitṓn, “tunic”): the OLD and Köbler compare Biblical Hebrew כְּתֹנֶת (kəṯōneṯ, “tunic”), and Wiktionary also Aramaic כִּיתּוּנָא (kittūnā, “tunic”), from a word for flax, with a metathesis of the consonants in Latin.^[2][3][1] Wiktionary notes that an Etruscan intermediary has been suggested.^[1] Lewis & Short's older derivation from ⟨*tog-nica⟩, from tegō (“to cover”), is no longer accepted by the other sources.^[4][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus, Miles gloriosus: a wife asks her husband to buy wool for a warm cloak and good winter tunics (tunicaeque hībernae bonae).^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The tunica was the standard garment of both sexes, worn alone or under the toga or cloak; men's was usually short-sleeved and knee-length, and Plautus mocks men in long, trailing tunics as effeminate.^[2] Senators and knights wore it with broad or narrow purple stripes, and Varro uses it of a coat of mail.^[2] Special tunics included the tunica recta woven on an upright loom, worn by young men and brides, the tunica palmāta of triumphing generals (Livy), and the tunica molesta of inflammable stuff in which criminals were burnt.^[2]

By extension it is any covering membrane or coat, as of the kidneys (Celsus), and the skin of a fruit.^[2][1] Church Latin glosses it “coat, shirt, tunic, dalmatic”.^[5] In medieval Latin it was a liturgical tunicle and a surcoat, and also a military cloak.^[6][1]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of winter tunics.^[2][3]
• 116–27 BC – Varro of a tunic of mail.^[2][3]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of the tunica palmāta.^[2][3]
• 14–37 AD – Celsus of a membrane covering the kidneys.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A tunic, the standard undergarment of Roman men and women.^[2][1][5]
2. A tunic of mail.^[2]
3. A covering membrane, coat; the skin (of a fruit).^[2][1]
4. (Medieval Latin) A liturgical tunicle; a surcoat; a military cloak.^[6][1]

Word family

• tunicātus
• tunicō
• tunicopallium
• tunicula

Related words

• toga
• English tunic

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
6. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill