Etymologically
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verber

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈwɛr.bɛr][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈvɛr.ber][1]

Forms

verber n (genitive verberis); third declension[1] The singular is attested only in the genitive and ablative; the nominative verber appears in glossaries.[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *werβos, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *werbʰ-os, from the root *werbʰ-.[1] The OLD compares verbēna (“sacred boughs”).[2] Wiktionary links it, perhaps, with Lithuanian vir̃bas (“rod, twig, cane”) and Proto-Slavic *vьrba (“willow”);[1] Adams derives it from a root meaning “to enclose”, the source of Tocharian B wārp- (“to surround”), but Kloekhorst finds that too distant in meaning.[1] Köbler gives a root ⟨*werb-⟩ “to turn, bend” (Pokorny 1153).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus, Menaechmi: verbera, compedēs, molae … haec pretia sunt ignāviae, “whips, fetters, mills: these are the wages of laziness”.[2]

Semantic evolution

Verbera are first the instruments of flogging, lashes, whips or rods, also used to drive horses and spin a top;[2][1] Virgil uses the word for the thong of a sling.[2][1] More often it is the blows themselves, a lashing or flogging (Plautus: dignun es verberibus multīs?, “do you deserve a good many lashes?”), and figuratively the lashes of insults (Cicero).[2][3] Poets use it for any stroke, such as the beating of wings in Virgil, or of wind and water.[2][1]

Church Latin glosses it “lash, blow, stripe, lashing, scourging”.[5]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of whips and of flogging.[2][4]
  • 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it.[4]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of the lashes of insults.[2][4]
  • 70–19 BC – Virgil of a sling's thong and of beating wings.[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (usually plural) A lash, whip, scourge, rod.[2][3][1]
  2. The thong of a sling.[2][1]
  3. (usually plural) Blows, a lashing, flogging;[2][1][5] (figurative) verbal lashes.[2][1][5]
  4. (chiefly poetic) A blow, stroke.[2][1]

Word family

  • verbēna

Usage notes

Lewis & Short give scutica and flagrum as synonyms of the instrument.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  5. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson