vitrum

Forms

vitrum n (genitive vitrī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *wedro- (“glass”), from Proto-Indo-European *wed-ro- (“water-like”), as Szemerényi proposed after a Middle Iranian parallel in which the word for glass comes from the word for water; de Vaan accepts this and relates it to unda (“wave”).^[2] He thinks the plant woad and its dye were named after the colour of ancient glass, a pale, transparent green.^[2] The OLD instead gives the woad as a separate entry, compared with Old High German weit (“woad”) and Old English wād (“woad”), and calls the origin of the word for glass doubtful, perhaps the same.^[3] Lewis & Short connected it with videō (“to see”), as something transparent.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Lucretius,^[2] and Cicero uses it in the speech for Rabirius Postumus.^[4][5] Caesar has the woad,^[5][3] a dye Wiktionary describes as used by the Britons.^[1]

Semantic evolution

It is glass and also a glass vessel: the Copa has someone rinse with a glass, and Pliny the Elder mentions cooling water in glass in snow.^[3] Horace calls the spring of Bandusia clearer than glass, and Martial has someone drink from glass.^[4] Pliny the Elder describes its making.^[4] As woad it is the plant Isatis tinctoria or the blue dye from its leaves.^[3][1] Stelten gives “glass”.^[6] The English words vitreous and vitrify come from its family.^[7]

Timeline

• 96–55 BC – Lucretius.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of glassware.^[4][5]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar, of the Britons' woad.^[5]
• 65–8 BC – Horace, “clearer than glass”.^[4][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Glass; a glass vessel.^[3][4][1]
2. Woad, the plant Isatis tinctoria; the blue dye made from it.^[3][1]

Word family

• vitreus

Related words

• unda
• English vitreous
• English vitrify

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com