scurra Latin · revision 32077

+ {{infobox|confidence=uncertain|formation=borrowing|attested=c. 250–184 BC, Plautus|origins=ett}}

+

+ ==Pronunciation==

+ * Classical: [ˈskʊr.ra]^(Wiktionary)

+ * Ecclesiastical: [ˈskur.ra]^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Forms==

+ '''scurra''' ''m'' (genitive scurrae); first declension^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Etymology==

+ It is probably [[bor|ett|-]], as Walde and Hofmann and the OLD hold.^(de Vaan 2008)^(OLD 2012)^(Wiktionary) Pokorny and Meiser proposed [[ine-pro|*sk(w)r̥sa]] from a root [[m|ine-pro|*skers-|t=to jump]], but de Vaan calls this a mere root etymology without clear cognates, semantically unconvincing, and notes that inherited masculine nouns in ⟨-a⟩ tend to be transparent.^(de Vaan 2008)^(Köbler 2010)

+

+ ==Earliest recorded meaning==

+ De Vaan dates it from Plautus,^(de Vaan 2008) who uses it of the fashionable city idler, as in the ''Mostellaria'', where a country slave mocks a town slave as a “town dandy, the darling of the people”.^(Lewis & Short 1879)^(OLD 2012)

+

+ ==Semantic evolution==

+ It first named a fashionable idler of the town, a man about town or dandy, and Cicero uses it of an elegant debauchee.^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879) The word came to refer mainly to the offensive wit such men affected, and by Augustan times it meant a professional buffoon or jester, usually attached to a rich man as a kind of parasite;^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879) Zeno, Cicero reports, mockingly called Socrates “the Attic buffoon”.^(Lewis & Short 1879) Under the later emperors it was a soldier of the guard.^(Lewis & Short 1879) In medieval Latin it can mean a servant or a mercenary soldier.^(Niermeyer 1976)

+

+ ==Timeline==

+ * c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of the town dandy.^(Lewis & Short 1879)^(de Vaan 2008)^(Köbler 2010)

+ * 81–43 BC – Cicero of elegant debauchees and of Zeno's jibe at Socrates.^(Lewis & Short 1879)^(Köbler 2010)

+ * 65–8 BC – Horace of the buffoon.^(Lewis & Short 1879)^(Köbler 2010)

+

+ ==Meanings==

+ ===Noun===

+ # A fashionable city idler, man about town, [[m|en|dandy]].^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879)^(Wiktionary)

+ # A professional [[m|en|buffoon]], [[m|en|jester]], often a rich man's hanger-on.^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879)^(Wiktionary)

+ # ''(Late Latin)'' A soldier of the imperial guard.^(Lewis & Short 1879)

+ # ''(Medieval Latin)'' A servant; a [[m|en|mercenary]] soldier.^(Niermeyer 1976)

+

+ ==Word family==

+ * [[scurrīlis]]

+ * [[scurror]]

+ * [[scurrula]]

+

+ ==Related words==

+ * [[scurrilitas|alt=scurrīlitās]]

+

+ ==References==

+ {{reflist}}