Etymologically
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venum

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈweː.nũː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈvɛː.num][1]

Forms

vēnum m or n (accusative; dative vēnō or vēnuī; no other cases)[2][3][4] It is also spelled vaenum, and with dō it is often written as one word, vēnumdō or vēnundō.[3][5][6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *wesno-, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *ues-no- (“price”).[2][1] Kloekhorst, as de Vaan reports, takes the noun to have been originally an n-stem, which would explain the different root vowels of the Greek, Armenian and Latin words.[2]

Cognate with Sanskrit वस्न (vasná-, “price, value”), Ancient Greek ὦνος (ônos, “price”) (whence ὠνέομαι (ōnéomai, “I buy”)) and Hittite ušnii̯e/a- (“to put up for sale”).[2][3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler find it first in the Twelve Tables;[2][6] it occurs only in the accusative and dative.[2][3] In Plautus' Mercator someone is to carry a woman off across the sea for sale (trans mare hinc venum apsportet).[4]

Semantic evolution

The accusative stood with verbs of giving and going: vēnum dō “to put up for sale, sell”, as when Livy has a crowd of Campanian citizens sold and Sallust the Numidians sold as slaves, and vēnum eō “to be sold”, as in Livy's ut familia ad aedem Cereris venum iret (“that his household should be sold at the temple of Ceres”).[5][4][3] De Vaan explains vēneō “to be sold” as from vēnum īre and vendō “to sell” as a shortened vēnum dare.[2]

The dative vēnō or vēnuī “for sale” appears in Tacitus, who has incitements to luxury put up for sale (posita veno inritamenta luxui), and in Apuleius, where someone is asked whether he has milk for sale.[4][7]

Timeline

  • c. 450 BC – The Twelve Tables use it.[2][6]
  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it with a verb of carrying, “for sale”.[4][6]
  • 220–130 BC – Pacuvius uses it.[4][6]
  • 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses venum dare and venum ire.[5][4][6]
  • 98–115 AD – Tacitus uses the dative veno “for sale”.[4][6]
  • c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius uses the dative venui.[4][6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Sale; only in set uses:[2][5]
  2. (accusative) vēnum dō (also vēnumdō), to put up for sale, sell;[3][5][4] vēnum eō, to be sold.[3][5][4]
  3. (dative) vēnō, vēnuī: for sale, as in pōnere vēnō “to offer for sale” and habēre vēnuī “to have for sale”.[4][7]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
  5. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T. (1890), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: American Book Company
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  7. ^ a b Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier