feretrum Latin · revision 36473
20 Oct 2026, 21:20 by bogdan “New Latin entry (la10k)” current version
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+ {{infobox|confidence=established|formation=borrowing|attested=116–27 BC, Varro}}
+
+ ==Pronunciation==
+ * Classical: [ˈfɛ.rɛ.trũː]^(Wiktionary)
+ * Ecclesiastical: [ˈfɛː.re.trum]^(Wiktionary)
+
+ ==Forms==
+ '''feretrum''' ''n'' (genitive feretrī); second declension^(Wiktionary)
+
+ ==Etymology==
+ It is [[bor|grc|φέρετρον|tr=phéretron|t=bier, litter]].^(OLD 2012)^(Köbler 2010)^(Wiktionary) Wiktionary adds that it was crossed with, or analysed as, [[m|la|ferō|t=to carry]] and [[m|la|-trum]], and calls [[m|la|ferculum]] a doublet with another form of the suffix.^(Wiktionary) Varro already noted that the Greeks had the same word for the bier.^(Lewis & Short 1879)
+
+ ==Earliest recorded meaning==
+ Varro is the first to record it: what a dead man's couch is carried on, he says, our ancestors called ''feretrum'', the Greeks ''pheretron''.^(Lewis & Short 1879)^(Köbler 2010)
+
+ ==Semantic evolution==
+ Lewis and Short describe it as a litter for carrying trophies in a triumph, the bodies of the dead or their images, mostly in poetry, beside the native [[ferculum]];^(Lewis & Short 1879) the OLD gives the bier and the sense of ''ferculum''.^(OLD 2012) Virgil and Ovid use it for a funeral bier,^(Lewis & Short 1879) and Silius Italicus has spoils carried hanging from a bloody litter.^(Lewis & Short 1879)
+
+ In medieval Latin it came to mean a coffin or tomb and a reliquary or shrine.^(Niermeyer 1976) In New Latin it also named a hearse.^(Wiktionary)
+
+ ==Timeline==
+ * 116–27 BC – Varro records it as the old word for a bier.^(Lewis & Short 1879)^(Köbler 2010)
+ * 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it for a funeral bier.^(Lewis & Short 1879)^(Köbler 2010)
+ * 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it for a bier beside a pyre and torches.^(Lewis & Short 1879)^(Köbler 2010)
+ * 25–101 AD – Silius Italicus uses it for a litter carrying spoils.^(Lewis & Short 1879)^(Köbler 2010)
+
+ ==Meanings==
+ ===Noun===
+ # A [[m|en|bier]], a litter for the dead.^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879)
+ # A [[m|en|litter]] for carrying trophies or images in a procession, the same as [[ferculum]].^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879)
+ # ''(Medieval Latin)'' A [[m|en|coffin]], a tomb.^(Niermeyer 1976)
+ # ''(Medieval Latin)'' A [[m|en|reliquary]], a shrine.^(Niermeyer 1976)
+ # ''(New Latin)'' A [[m|en|hearse]].^(Wiktionary)
+
+ ==References==
+ {{reflist}}