cestrum
Latin
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Uncertain.
- Possibly borrowed from Ancient Greek κέστρον (késtron)[1] or κέστρος (késtros, “sharpness”), from the root of the verb κεντέω (kentéō, “to prick, sting, stab”).
- Alternatively, from caed- (“to cut”) + -trum,[1] from Proto-Indo-European *keh₂id-, *kh₂eyd- (“to cut, hew”) + *-trom (“instrumental suffix”), related to Latin caelō (“carve”), caelum (“chisel”).
Pronunciation
[edit](Classical Latin) IPA(key): /ˈkes.trum/, [ˈkɛs̠t̪rʊ̃ˑ]
- (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): /ˈt͡ʃes.trum/, [ˈt͡ʃɛst̪rum]
Noun
[edit]cestrum n (genitive cestrī); second declension
- some tool used in encaustic painting on ivory
- 23 CE – 79 CE, Pliny the Elder, Natural History 35.147, (The artist's name here is sometimes alternatively read Lala or Laia):
- Iaia Cyzicena, perpetua virgo, M. Varronis iuventa, Romae et penicillo pinxit et cestro in ebore imagines mulierum maxime et Neapoli anum in grandi tabula, suam quoque imaginem ad speculum.
- At Rome during the youth of Marcus Varro, Iaia of Cyzicus, who never married, made portraits both with a paintbrush and with a cestrum in ivory, mostly of women, and a large painted panel of an old woman at Naples, also a portrait of herself made with a mirror.
- Iaia Cyzicena, perpetua virgo, M. Varronis iuventa, Romae et penicillo pinxit et cestro in ebore imagines mulierum maxime et Neapoli anum in grandi tabula, suam quoque imaginem ad speculum.
- 23 CE – 79 CE, Pliny the Elder, Natural History 35.149:
- encausto pingendi duo fuere antiquitus genera cera et in ebore cestro id est v<e>riculo donec classes pingi coepere hoc tertium accessit resolutis igni ceris penicillo utendi quae pictura navibus nec sole nec sale ventisve corrumpitur
- Anciently there were two types of encaustic painting, with wax and in ivory with a cestrum (that is a small skewer/spit) until fleets started to be painted. This added a third type, using a brush with waxes melted by fire: this method of painting ships is not ruined by sun nor by salt or winds.
- encausto pingendi duo fuere antiquitus genera cera et in ebore cestro id est v<e>riculo donec classes pingi coepere hoc tertium accessit resolutis igni ceris penicillo utendi quae pictura navibus nec sole nec sale ventisve corrumpitur
Usage notes
[edit]Pliny describes the cestrum as a tool used in encaustic painting (in both cases specifying ivory as the substrate) but its precise form and function are not clear from his description. The explanatory gloss "id est v<e>riculo" (manuscript "viriculo") is typically understood as implying it was some kind of pointed tool similar to a spit (verū). Modern scholars have proposed various hypotheses: some suppose that it was a pointed tool used to cut or engrave colored wax, others that it was a spatula-like or toothed tool used to apply wax.[1] It is sometimes assumed that it was made of metal and heated.
The noun is used in both cases in the ablative singular, so the gender and the form of the nominative are not certain:[2] it could be either masculine or neuter, and could have had a Greek-type second-declension nominative singular ending (e.g. cestros and cestron are equally possible).
Declension
[edit]Second-declension noun (neuter).
singular | plural | |
---|---|---|
nominative | cestrum | cestra |
genitive | cestrī | cestrōrum |
dative | cestrō | cestrīs |
accusative | cestrum | cestra |
ablative | cestrō | cestrīs |
vocative | cestrum | cestra |
Related terms
[edit]Descendants
[edit]- Translingual: Cestrum
References
[edit]Further reading
[edit]- “cestrum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “cestrum”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
- Latin terms with unknown etymologies
- Latin terms borrowed from Ancient Greek
- Latin terms derived from Ancient Greek
- Latin terms suffixed with -trum
- Latin terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- Latin 2-syllable words
- Latin terms with IPA pronunciation
- Latin lemmas
- Latin nouns
- Latin second declension nouns
- Latin neuter nouns in the second declension
- Latin neuter nouns
- Latin terms with quotations
- la:Painting
- la:Tools