The corpus record — Latin

taenia

ribbon, string; (here:) intestinal worm

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

Where it lives

De Pallio 1 · 2.92/10k
De Corona 1 · 2.06/10k
De agri cultura 2 · 1.28/10k
Naturalis Historia 24 · 0.61/10k
Metamorphoses 3 · 0.56/10k
De Architectura 3 · 0.52/10k
Apologia 1 · 0.47/10k
Aeneid 1 · 0.16/10k

What it meant

1. taenia — de Vaan

taenia 'ribbon, string; (here:) intestinal worm'. The suffix recalls umbilicus (also lumbus situated in the lower belly) and formica 'ant' (also an insect). WH assume that lumbrreflects *lonctr-, and derive the word from a root *lndh-, see s.v, lumbus. But since the PIE voiced aspirates normally yield stops after a nasal in all Italic languages, thus bleeding the specifically Latin change *-dtr- > -br- (cf. Meiser … — [de Vaan, s.v. taenia, p. 365]

2. taenĭa — Lewis & Short

taenĭa, ae (

I abl. plur. taeniis; dissyl., Verg. A. 5, 269), f., = taini/a, a band, ribbon, fillet; a head-band, hair-band, bandeau (syn. vitta).

I Lit. (only poet.): taenias Graecam vocem sic interpretatur Verrius, ut dicat ornamentum esse laneum capitis honorati, ut sit apud Caecilium in Androgyno: sepulcrum plenum taeniarum, ita ut solet, et alias: dum taeniam, qui volnus vinciret, petit. Ennius in Alexandro: volans de caelo cum coronā et taeniis (Trag. Rel. v. 33 Rib.): Attius in Neoptolemo: (tumulum) decorare est satius quam urbem taeniis, Fest. p. 360 Müll. (cf. Trag. Rel. v. 472 Rib.): puniceis ibant evincti tempora taeniis, Verg. A. 5, 269; 7, 352: taenia ne madidos violet bombycina crines, Mart. 14, 24, 1.—

II Transf., of things of a like shape.

A A tape-worm: Taenia solium and vulgaris, Linn.; Cato, R. R. 126; Plin. 11, 33, 39, § 113; 31, 9, 45, § 102; Ser. Samm. 30, 563.—

B A kind of fish, the ribbon-fish: Cepola taenia, Linn.; Plin. 32, 7, 24, § 76 (Jahn, thynnus).—

C In archit., the fillet which separates the Doric frieze from the architrave, Vitr. 4, 3 med.—

D A streak in paper, Plin. 13, 12, 25, § 81 (Sillig).—

E A row of projecting rocks in the sea, a reef, Plin. 3, prooem. § 4. — Hence the purple-fish found on these rocks are called taeniense genus purpurarum, Plin. 9, 37, 61, § 131.

In the wild

taenias Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 27.9.p4
taeniarumve Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 21.20.p4
taenias Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 23.8.p4
taenias Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 20.5.p5
taenias Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 24.11.p5
taenias Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 23.6.p5

6 of 36 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. taenia (scan pp. 365-366; entry #952). Root candidates: *lonctr-, *lundr-.
Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine Treated in Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine s.v. taenia (scan p. 697; entry #11587).

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.