violarium

Forms

violārium n (genitive violāriī or violārī); second declension^[1][2]

Etymology

It is from Latin viola (“violet; stock”) + -ārium.^[1][3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first recorded use is in Varro's work on farming,^[3][2][5] meaning a bed of violae, which the OLD takes to be probably stocks or gillyflowers.^[1]

Semantic evolution

Besides Varro, Virgil, Horace, Ovid and Columella have it for beds or banks of violae.^[2][6][5]

Late Christian writers kept it: Sedulius, in his Paschale opus, writes of thorns that burn up the violet beds of a flowering field, and Venantius Fortunatus has the line per violāria currō, “I run through the violet beds”.^[7]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro uses it in his work on farming.^[2][5][3]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it in the Georgics.^[2][6][3]
• 65–8 BC – Horace uses it in the Odes.^[2][6][3]
• 1st century AD – Columella uses it.^[2][3]
• 1st half of the 5th century AD – Sedulius uses it.^[7][3]
• 536–c. 610 AD – Venantius Fortunatus uses it in his life of Saint Martin.^[7][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bed of violae (probably stocks or gillyflowers), a bed of violets.^[1][2][4]

Related words

• viola

Usage notes

In medieval Spain violārium was also the name of a kind of rent or payment (census); a general court (cūria generālis) of 1289 under King Alfonso of Aragon revoked the violāria granted to royal officials.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
5. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
7. ^ a b c d du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre