tus

Forms

tūs n (genitive tūris); third declension^[1] It is sometimes written thūs.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek θύος (thúos, “offering, incense”), adapted to Latin; the Greek word belongs to θύω (thúō, “to sacrifice”).^[2][3][1][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus, Poenulus: a man who has sacrificed ūllum tūris grānum, a single grain of incense, to Venus.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

It is frankincense, the fragrant gum burnt in sacrifice, as Cicero's tūs accendere.^[2][3] It was burnt at funerals, as Lucan's costly tombs heaped with incense, and used in medicine: Cato gives oxen three grains of it.^[2] Tūs masculum is frankincense in round drops, as in Virgil's “male frankincense”, and Pliny the Elder writes on it at length.^[2][3] Tūs terrae is a small fragrant plant (Pliny).^[2]

Church Latin glosses it “incense”.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a grain of incense.^[2][4]
• 234–149 BC – Cato of incense as a remedy.^[2][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of burning incense.^[3][4]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of male frankincense.^[2][4]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder on frankincense.^[3][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. Frankincense, incense.^[2][1][5]
2. tūs terrae, a small aromatic plant.^[2]

Related words

• tūricremus
• tūrifer

References

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