similixula

• semilixula (appears in other manuscripts documenting the same text from Varro)
• semixula (likely an erroneous form; appears in certain manuscript versions of De Lingua Latina)

Unknown, possibly from Sabine. The /i/ implies the closing of the vowel /ē/, a distinctly non-Latin feature. Alternatively, it may have formed via haplology of simila or similis and lixula. If this haplology is accepted, it is unlikely that the term belongs to a language other than Latin, although Varro implies that it is a Sabine term.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [sɪ.mɪˈlɪk.sʊ.ɫa]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [si.miˈlik.su.la]

similixula f (genitive similixulae); first declension

1. The meaning of this term is uncertain. Possibilities include: some type of bread
   • 116 BCE – 27 BCE, Marcus Terentius Varro, De Lingua Latina 106-107:

     Circuli, quod mixta farina et caseo et aqua circuitum aequabiliter fundebant. Hos quidam qui magis incondite faciebant uocabant lixulas et similixulas uocabulo Sabino: quae frequentia Sabinis.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

One theory postulates that the term may have referred to a type of bread with little cheese, hence little seasoning, and thus incondite (“foul”) as Varro describes. It is possible that flour was used to compensate for this deficit, hence simila (“disorderly, rude”). However, an alternative etymology proposes that the term derives from similis and the other terms for a similar type of bread (circuli and lixula) likely also contained flour.

First-declension noun.

• lixula

• Annie Cecilia Burman (24 March 2018) De Lingua Sabina: A Reappraisal of the Sabine Glosses‎^[1], →DOI, pages 49-51