semipes Latin · revision 35727

+ {{infobox|confidence=established|formation=compound|attested=234–149 BC, Cato}}

+

+ ==Forms==

+ '''sēmipēs''' ''m'' (genitive sēmipedis); third declension^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879)

+

+ ==Etymology==

+ It is [[af|la|sēmi-|pēs|t1=half|t2=foot]].^(OLD 2012)^(Köbler 2010)^(Georges 1913) The prefix goes back to [[ine-pro|*sēm-i|t=in one]], whose meaning shifted to “one of two” and then “half”;^(de Vaan 2008) [[m|la|pēs]] continues the Indo-European word for the foot, [[ine-pro|*pōd-s]].^(de Vaan 2008)

+

+ ==Earliest recorded meaning==

+ Its earliest use is as a measure of length in Cato's ''De agricultura'',^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879)^(Köbler 2010) where a hole half a foot across is to be made in a wheel.^(OLD 2012)

+

+ ==Semantic evolution==

+ As a linear measure of half a foot it belongs to the writers on agriculture and building: Varro, Vitruvius, Columella and Pliny the Elder use it for the breadth of boards, the depth of soil and the size of trenches.^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879) In the Digest, Ulpian uses it of the half foot of ground that each of two neighbours contributes for a party wall.^(OLD 2012)

+

+ In prosody it is half a metrical foot: Gellius reports Varro's observation that in the hexameter the fifth half-foot always ends a word,^(OLD 2012)^(Georges 1913) and Terentianus Maurus, Ausonius and Augustine in his ''De musica'' use it in the same way.^(OLD 2012)^(Georges 1913) Prudentius uses it as an adjective of a man with one leg cut off, “half-footed”.^(Georges 1913)^(Gaffiot 2016)^(Conte 2010)

+

+ Medieval British writers kept the measure and the metrical sense, the latter in Bede; a gloss also uses it of someone deformed in one foot.^(DMLBS)

+

+ ==Timeline==

+ * 234–149 BC – Cato gives a measure of half a foot.^(OLD 2012)^(Köbler 2010)

+ * 116–27 BC – Varro uses it for the breadth of a board and, as Gellius reports, for half a metrical foot.^(OLD 2012)^(Köbler 2010)

+ * 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder gives the depth of trenches in it.^(OLD 2012)^(Köbler 2010)

+ * before 223 AD – Ulpian uses it of half a foot of ground for a party wall.^(OLD 2012)^(Köbler 2010)

+ * 348/49–c. 413 AD – Prudentius uses it of a man with one leg.^(Georges 1913)^(Köbler 2010)

+

+ ==Meanings==

+ ===Noun===

+ # Half a [[m|en|foot]], as a measure of length.^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879)

+ # ''(law)'' Half a foot of ground (contributed for a party wall).^(OLD 2012)

+ # ''(prosody)'' Half a metrical foot.^(OLD 2012)^(Georges 1913)

+ # ''(adjective, Late Latin)'' Having one foot or leg, [[m|en|lame]].^(Georges 1913)^(Gaffiot 2016)

+

+ ==Usage notes==

+ Georges records a by-form ''sēmipedius'' in Marius Victorinus.^(Georges 1913)

+

+ ==References==

+ {{reflist}}