lac

Meaning

1. neutermilk
   Cum lacte nutricis.With the nurse's milk.
2. neuterfor something sweet, pleasant
   In melle sunt linguae sitae vostrae atque orationes, lacteque; corda felle sunt lita, atque acerbo aceto.In honey your tongues and speeches are dipped, and in milk; your hearts are smeared with gall and with bitter vinegar.c. 189 BCE, Plautus, Truculentus 178–179
   […], ut [doctores] teneras adhuc mentes[…]satiari velut quodam iucundioris disciplinae lacte patiantur.[…] , that teachers may let minds tender still be satisfied as by the milk of a more pleasant discipline.c. 95 CE, Quintilianus, Institutio oratoria 2.4.5
3. neutermilky juice
   Lac herbae.Milk of a plant.
   cum lacte veneni.with poisonous milk.
4. neuterpoeticmilk-white color
   Forte sub umbrosis nemorosae vallibus Idae candidus, armenti gloria, taurus erat, signatus tenui media inter cornua nigro;As fortune had it, in the shadowy valleys of forested Ida, there was a white bull, the glory of its herd, marked by slightly black colour between its horns; the blemish was (only) one, the rest were milk-white.2 CE, Ovidius, Ars Amatoria 1.290

Latīnē defined in Latin in our graded readers

Declension

Phrases from Meissner's Latin Phrase-Book

errorem cum lacte nutricis sugere (Tusc. 3. 1. 2)

to imbibe error from one's mother's breasts.

Origins

From lact by simplification of a word-final sequence of two plosives (the variant nominative/accusative form lacte shows the addition of a vowel as an alternative). The etymology is controversial: there is no consensus on the cognate set, the manner of descent (inheritance vs. borrowing), or the form and ultimate origin of the etymon. Possible cognates include Ancient Greek γάλα (gála, “milk”, stem γᾰ́λᾰκτ- (gắlăkt-)), Old Armenian կաթն (katʻn, “milk”) and its likely variant *կաղց (*kałcʻ), Hittite 𒂵𒆷𒀝𒋻 (galaktar, “balm, resin”), Albanian dhallë (“buttermilk”), Romanian zară (“buttermilk”) and Waigali zōr (“milk”). More information Pokorny reconstructs the Latin and Greek words as inherited from Proto-Indo-European *glakt n from a root *glag- or *glak-. De Vaan derives the Latin, Greek and Armenian forms from Proto-Indo-European *gl̥gt-, and follows Meiser in explaining the loss of initial *g- in Latin as a result of long-distance dissimilation. Per Nielsen, the Latin and Greek words can be derived from *glakt-, Old Armenian *կաղց (*kałcʻ) can be derived from *g(a)l(ḱ)t- (requiring an initial non-palatal velar), and Albanian dhallë can perhaps be derived from *ǵal(K)- (requiring an initial palatal velar); on the basis of the variability in the initial consonant and the unusual root structure, Nielsen considers the root to be non-Indo-European in origin. Garnier, Sagart and Sagot 2017 attempt to derive the term from the root *h₂melǵ- (“milk”), instead: citing Garnier 2016's reconstruction of a verb *ambi-blactāre (“to milk with both hands”) > *amblactāre, they suppose that it was subsequently reanalyzed as *amb-lactāre > lactāre, which subsequently yielded the noun lact (> lac) via back-formation. For another possible relation, see dulcis.

Related words