ursa

Forms

ursa f (genitive ursae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ursus (“bear”), made feminine.^[2][3][4] De Vaan traces ursus to Proto-Indo-European *h₂rtḱo- (“bear”), cognate with Ancient Greek ἄρκτος (árktos, “bear; the Great Bear”), Sanskrit ऋक्ष (ṛ́kṣa, “bear”) and Old Irish art (“bear”); since neither the ⟨u⟩ nor the ⟨rs⟩ is the expected outcome, he thinks some taboo distortion affected the word for the bear.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Virgil has Acestes rough with the skin of a Libyan bear, one of the uses where the sex of the animal does not matter.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

It means a she-bear, as often in Ovid and in Martial, and in poetry a bear in general.^[3][2] As a constellation Ursa is the Great Bear, more fully Ursa māior, or the Lesser Bear, Ursa minor, in Ovid, Valerius Flaccus and Suetonius.^[3][2]

Timeline

• 70–19 BC – Virgil, of a bear's skin.^[2][3][4]
• 57/46–12 BC – Propertius.^[4]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid, of she-bears and of the Great Bear.^[3][2][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A she-bear; in poetry, a bear in general.^[2][3][1]
2. (astronomy) The Great Bear, Ursa Major; also the Lesser Bear, Ursa Minor.^[2][3]

Related words

• ursus

References

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