The corpus record — Latin

favus

honeycomb

Generated live from the audited Latin corpus — every figure on this page is a database query, not prose from memory.

Where it lives

Fescinnina de nuptiis Honorii Augusti 1 · 18.25/10k
Medicamina faciei femineae 1 · 16.31/10k
Dittochaeon 1 · 8.17/10k
Georgicon 7 · 4.95/10k
In Rufinum 2 · 3.49/10k
de raptu Proserpinae 2 · 2.87/10k
Cathemerina 2 · 2.72/10k
Panegyricus de quarto consulatu Honorii Augusti 1 · 2.52/10k
Panegyricus de sexto consulatu Honorii Augusti 1 · 2.4/10k
Res Rustica, Books I-IX 18 · 2.29/10k
De Corona 1 · 2.06/10k
Psychomachia 1 · 1.67/10k

Densest 12 of 31 attested works shown, by occurrences per 10,000 attested tokens.

What it meant

1. favus — de Vaan

favus 'honeycomb' [m. o] (Varro+) Etymology unknown. One might follow WH and derive favus from PIE *bhuH- / *bhh2u- 'to dwell', in the sense that the honeycomb is (part of) the 'dwelling' of bees. Applying Vine's (2006) formulation of Thurneysen-Havet's Law, favus could then reflect a preform *bhouh2-o-, but final accentuation usually indicates an agent noun, whereas favus would rather require a resultative noun … — [de Vaan, s.v. favus, p. 221]

2. făvus — Lewis & Short

făvus, i, m.,

I a honey-comb.

I Prop.: favus est, quem fingunt (apes) multicavatum e cera, cum singula cava sena latera habeant, Varr. R. R. 3, 16, 24; Cic. Off. 1, 44, 157; Col. 11, 2, 57; Verg. G. 1, 344; 4, 161; Ov. M. 8, 678; id. F. 4, 152: mellis, Vulg. 1 Reg. 14, 27 et saep.—Prov.: Crescere tamquam favum, i. e. imperceptibly, Petr. 43 and 76.—

II Transf., a hexagonal stone in a pavement, Vitr. 7, 1.

3. favus — Walde–Hofmann

favus, - m. , Wabe im Bienenstock, bes. die mit Honig gefüllte, Honigwabe"; übtr. (von der Form) ,sechseckige Steinplatten* (seit Atta, rom, neben *favulus [in Konkurrenz mit gall. *órisca]) Et. unsicher. Vl. nach Vaniéek 194, Walde LEW.* s. v. als „Bau* (vgl. Plin. 11, 14. primum favàós cónstruunt, ceram fingunt, hoc est domös. celläsque faciunt) aus *bhauos zu ahd. usw. got. bauan „wohnen“, ahd. büan, an. büa, … — [Walde–Hofmann, s.v. favus, p. 501]

In the wild

favo Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 11.14.p1
favis Vergil, Georgicon 4.22
favis Columella, Res Rustica, Books I-IX 9.13.4
favis Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 11.16.p2
favos Vergil, Georgicon 4.242
favus Petronius, Satyricon 76

6 of 86 attestations shown.

Where it came from

de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Brill 2008) Treated in de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Brill 2008) s.v. favus (scan pp. 221-222; entry #536). Root candidates: *bhuH-, *bhh2u-, *fyauo-.
Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine Treated in Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine s.v. fauus (scan p. 246; entry #3806).
Walde-Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch Treated in Walde-Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch s.v. favus (scan pp. 501-502; entry #1085). Root candidates: *bheyá-, *fo-, *uebh-.

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Latin text and lemmatization derived from the Perseus Digital Library (canonical-latinLit), CC BY-SA 4.0. Lewis & Short (public domain) via Perseus. This derived data is shared under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 license.