cuniculus Latin · revision 32329

+ {{infobox|confidence=uncertain|formation=borrowing|attested=116–27 BC, Varro}}

+

+ ==Pronunciation==

+ * Classical: [kʊˈniː.kʊ.ɫʊs]^(Wiktionary)

+ * Ecclesiastical: [kuˈniː.ku.lus]^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Forms==

+ '''cunīculus''' ''m'' (genitive cunīculī); second declension^(Wiktionary)

+ Paul the Deacon's Festus has a neuter ''cunīculum'' in the sense of a tunnel.^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879)

+

+ ==Etymology==

+ It is perhaps [[bor|xib|-]], as Pliny the Elder's report on rabbits in Spain suggests;^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879)^(Wiktionary) Lewis & Short call it Spanish.^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879)^(Wiktionary) Wiktionary suggests an Iberian or Celtiberian word with the Latin diminutive suffix, comparing [[eu|untxi|t=rabbit]].^(Wiktionary) Köbler also mentions a derivation from [[m|la|cunnus]].^(Köbler 2010) It appears in Greek texts as [[m|grc|κόνικλος|tr=kóniklos]] or [[m|grc|κύνικλος|tr=kúniklos]].^(Lewis & Short 1879)^(TLL)

+

+ ==Earliest recorded meaning==

+ Varro describes it as a third kind of hare, like ours but low, which, he says, is called cunīculus.^(OLD 2012)^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Semantic evolution==

+ The rabbit is the first sense: Catullus speaks of something softer than a rabbit's fur, and Pliny the Elder of a town in Spain undermined by rabbits.^(OLD 2012) From the animal's burrowing it came to mean an underground passage or burrow: Cicero asks what if a man dug tunnels to the treasury.^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879) In war it is a mine dug under the walls in a siege, as in Caesar and Livy, and figuratively a secret attack, as Cicero says that what was sought openly is now attacked by mines.^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879) It is also a water conduit or channel, as in Cicero's case about the waters of the Velinus.^(OLD 2012) Church Latin glosses it a mine.^(Stelten 1995)

+

+ ==Timeline==

+ * 116–27 BC – Varro of the rabbit.^(OLD 2012)^(Köbler 2010)

+ * 81–43 BC – Cicero of tunnels, conduits and secret attacks.^(OLD 2012)^(Köbler 2010)

+ * c. 50 BC – Caesar of siege mines.^(OLD 2012)^(Köbler 2010)

+ * 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus of a rabbit's fur.^(OLD 2012)^(Köbler 2010)

+

+ ==Meanings==

+ ===Noun===

+ # A [[m|en|rabbit]].^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879)^(Wiktionary)

+ # An underground passage, [[m|en|tunnel]]; a [[m|en|burrow]].^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879)^(Wiktionary)

+ # ''(military)'' A [[m|en|mine]] dug in a siege; figuratively, a secret attack.^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879)^(Stelten 1995)^(Wiktionary)

+ # A water conduit, channel.^(OLD 2012)

+

+ ==References==

+ {{reflist}}