cinnamomum

• cinamōmum, cinnamon, cinnamum

From Ancient Greek κιννάμωμον (kinnámōmon). Possible to be explained as “Chinese amōmum”, that word however is of unknown origin.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /kin.naˈmoː.mum/, [kɪn.naˈmoː.mʊ̃]

cinnamōmum n (genitive cinnamōmī); second declension

1. cinnamon (plant and produce)
   • 65 CE, Lucan, Pharsalia X v. 164–168 trans. Henry Thomas Riley p. 391

     Accipiunt sertas nardo florente coronas
     Et numquam fugiente rosa, multumque madenti
     Infudere comae quod nondum evanuit aura
     Cinnamon externa nec perdidit aera terrae
     Advectumque recens vicinae messis amomum.

     They received chaplets wreathed with the flowering nard, and the never-fading rose; and upon their dripping locks they poured forth plenteous cinnamon, that had not yet faded in the air nor lost its scent in a foreign land. The fresh amomum, too, of the adjacent harvests was brought.

   • 79 CE, Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia XII 50–51 trans. David Edward Eichholz 29–30

     Simile his et nomine et frutice cardamomum, semine oblongo. metitur eodem modo in Arabia. quattuor eius genera: viridissimum ac pingue, acutis angulis contumax frianti — hoc maxime laudatur —, proximum e rufo candicans, tertium brevius atque nigrius, peius tamen varium et facile tritu odorisque parvi, qui vero costo vicinus esse debet. hoc et apud Medos nascitur. pretium optimi in libras 𐆖 III.
     Cinnamomo proxima gentilitas erat, ni prius Arabiae divitias indicare conveniret causasque quae cognomen illi felicis ac beatae dedere. Principalia ergo in illa tus atque murra, haec et cum Trogodytis communis, tura praeter Arabiam nullis ac ne Arabiae quidem universae. […]

     Resembling these substances both in name and in the shrub that produces it is cardamomum, the seeds of which are oblong in shape. It is gathered in Arabia, in the same manner as amomum. It has four varieties: one very green and oily, with sharp corners and awkward to crumblethis is the kind most highly spoken ofthe next sort a whitish red, the third shorter and of a colour nearer black, while an inferior kind is mottled and easily friable, and has little scentin the true kind the scent ought to be near to that of costus. Cardamomum also grows in the country of the Medes. The price of the best sort is 3 denarii a pound.
     Next in affinity to cardamomum would have come cinnamomum, were it not convenient first to catalogue the riches of Arabia and the reasons that have given it the names of Happy and Blessed. […]

2. (figuratively) a term of endearment

Second-declension noun (neuter).

• (cinnamon): cassia

• cinnameus

• cinnamōminus

• English: cinnamon
• Translingua: Cinnamomum

• cinnamomum in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• cinnamomum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• Roberts, Edward A. (2014) A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Spanish Language with Families of Words based on Indo-European Roots, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN