veretrum

Latin

Etymology

Uncertain.[1][2] Ostensibly from vereor (“to show respect, fear”) +‎ -trum (suffix forming instrumental nouns), from Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to watch, cover; to heed, notice”); however, De Vaan (2008) is unconvinced by this etymology,[1] and Adams (1990) considers the meaning unexpected for an instrumental derivative of this root.[3] Attested from Varro onwards.[1][3]

Pronunciation

Noun

veretrum n (genitive veretrī); second declension

  1. the external genitals (male or female), penis, vulva; the clitoris
    Synonyms: verenda, pudenda, genitālia, partēs, membra, nātūra
    • 116 BCE – 27 BCE, Marcus Terentius Varro, Menippeae 282:
      dein immittit virile veretrum
      (please add an English translation of this quotation)
    • first century AD, Phaedrus, Fabulae Aesopiae 4.14, (iambic senarius):
      ā fi͞ctĭōnĕ vĕrĕtrī li͞ngua͞m mŭlĭĕris. / Affinitatem traxit inde obscenitas.
      (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Usage notes

Although several sources (Isidore, De Vaan) cite this word as referring specifically to the male genitals, the 4-5th century physician Caelius Aurelianus uses it to refer to the female reproductive organ as a whole.[4] This restriction would also make redundant the phrase virīle veretrum (in Varro).

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter).

singular plural
nominative veretrum veretra
genitive veretrī veretrōrum
dative veretrō veretrīs
accusative veretrum veretra
ablative veretrō veretrīs
vocative veretrum veretra

Derived terms

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “vereor”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 665
  2. ^ Ranjan Sen (2015) Syllable and Segment in Latin, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, pages 98-99
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Adams, J.N. (1990) The Latin Sexual Vocabulary, JHU Press, →ISBN, page 52
  4. ^ “Caelius Aurelianus, Gynaeciorum Sorani e graeco versorum et retractatorum quae exstant, 1, p6, [cap. 12]”, in www.mlat.uzh.ch: Corpus Corporum‎[1], 2 May 2021 (last accessed), archived from the original on 2 May 2021

Further reading

  • “uerētrum” on page 2244 of the Oxford Latin Dictionary (2nd ed., 2012)
  • “veretrum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • “veretrum”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • "veretrum", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
  • veretrum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.