vitta

Forms

vitta f (genitive vittae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from vieō (“to plait, weave”).^[2][3][4] De Vaan suggests that it comes from an earlier ⟨*vīta⟩, continuing an old participle ⟨*uiH-to-⟩ of that root.^[5][1] He derives ⟨vieō⟩ from Proto-Italic *wijeje/o- (“to plait”) and Proto-Indo-European *u̯h₁i-éie- (“to plait”), cognate with Sanskrit व्ययति (vyáyati, “to wind, wrap”) and Lithuanian vyti (“to twist, wind”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Plautus,^[4] where a woman is to wear a matron's hairstyle and headbands so as to pass as someone's wife.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is first a linen headband worn by Roman married and unmarried women.^[2] In religion it is a woollen band, worn alone or with the īnfula: by priests, as Virgil's Laocoon with his fillets soaked in gore, by sacrificial victims, carried by suppliants, and tied to altars and sacred objects, as in Virgil's Eclogues.^[2][3] In Pliny the Elder it is any band or strap.^[2][1]

In Church Latin it is a ribbon or band, and also either of the two ribbons hanging from a mitre.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a matron's headbands.^[2][4]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of priests' fillets and of altars bound with wool.^[2][4]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder of leather straps.^[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A linen headband worn by women.^[2][1]
2. A woollen fillet in religious ritual, worn by priests, victims and suppliants or tied to altars.^[2][3][1]
3. A band, ribbon, strap.^[2][1][6]
4. (Ecclesiastical Latin) One of the two ribbons of a mitre.^[6]

Word family

• vittātus

Related words

• vieō
• īnfula
• vīmen

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c 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 de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson