pistillum

English

Etymology

From Latin pistillum. Doublet of pestle and pistil.

Noun

pistillum (plural pistilla)

  1. (botany, obsolete) A pistil.

Latin

Etymology

A diminutive formation from the root of pīnsō and pistō. Perhaps from *pistlelo-,[1] diminutive of *pistlo- (the ancestor of pīlum (“pounder, pestle”)), from *pis- and the instrument noun suffix *tlo-. Alternatively from *pistrelo-,[2] with the -tr- variant of the instrument noun suffix. On the one hand, the base *pistrum is not attested, and the phonetically regular outcome of *pistrelo- would probably be pistellum rather than pistillum. On the other hand, reconstructing a *-s-tl- sequence in the base at the time the diminutive was derived is chronologically problematic since *-tl- was changed to *-kl-* from early on in Italic (as seen in the Latin instrument suffix -culum).

Pronunciation

Noun

pistillum n (genitive pistillī); second declension

  1. A pestle.

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter).

singular plural
nominative pistillum pistilla
genitive pistillī pistillōrum
dative pistillō pistillīs
accusative pistillum pistilla
ablative pistillō pistillīs
vocative pistillum pistilla

Descendants

References

  1. ^ De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “bīlis”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, pages 467 and 72
  2. ^ Miller, D. Gary (2006) Latin Suffixal Derivatives in English: and their Indo-European Ancestry, New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 91

Further reading

  • “pistillum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • pistillum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
  • “pistillum”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin
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