pistillum

English

Noun

pistillum (plural pistilla)

  1. (botany, obsolete) A pistil.

Latin

Etymology

A diminutive formation from the root of pīnsō and pistō. Perhaps from *pistlelo-,[1] diminutive of *pistlo- (the ancestor of pīlum (“pounder, pestle”)), from *pis- and the instrument noun suffix *tlo-. Alternatively from *pistrelo-,[2] with the -tr- variant of the instrument noun suffix. On the one hand, the base *pistrum is not attested, and the phonetically regular outcome of *pistrelo- would probably be pistellum rather than pistillum. On the other hand, reconstructing a *-s-tl- sequence in the base at the time the diminutive was derived is chronologically problematic since *-tl- was changed to *-kl-* from early on in Italic (as seen in the Latin instrument suffix -culum).

Pronunciation

Noun

pistillum n (genitive pistillī); second declension

  1. A pestle.

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter).

Case Singular Plural
Nominative pistillum pistilla
Genitive pistillī pistillōrum
Dative pistillō pistillīs
Accusative pistillum pistilla
Ablative pistillō pistillīs
Vocative pistillum pistilla

Descendants

References
  1. De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “bīlis”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, pages 467 and 72
  2. Miller, D. Gary (2006) Latin Suffixal Derivatives in English: and their Indo-European Ancestry, New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 91

Further reading
  • “pistillum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • pistillum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
  • “pistillum”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin
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