The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville - Pot-pourri

and, by its fermentation, a harsh taste and inebriating
heat are added. This is made in the parts of Spain where
there is no fertile place for producing wine.
Lees (fex, i.e. faex) are so called because they affix
(adfigere, ppl. adfixus) themselves to the vats by settling
out. 19. The sauce garum is a liquid made from fish,
which formerly was made from the fish that the Greeks
called , and although it is now made from any
kind of fish it retains the original name that it had at its
beginning. 20. Liquamen is so called because little fish
dissolved in pickling brine liquefy (liquare)asthat sauce.
The liquid from liquamen is called salsugo or muria,but
properly muria (i.e. “brine”) is the name for water mixed
with salt, to produce the taste of the sea (mare). 21.Juice
(sucus)isthenameforwhat is squeezed from a filter bag
(saccus), like barley-water (ptisana). Barley-water, broth
(zema), and decoction (apozema) areGreekwords (i.e.
, “barley-gruel”; , “decoction”; ,
“decoction”).
iv. Dishes for food (De vasis escariis) 1. Dishes (vas)
are so called from ‘eating’ (vesci), because food is served
on them. Its diminutive is vascula, asifitwerevescula.
2. Crockery(fictile) issocalled because it is made and
fashioned (fingere,ppl. fictus)from earth, for to fashion
is to make, form, and mold, whence also potters (figulus)
take their name. And a ceramic (fictilis)dishisnot called
‘fashioned’ (fictus)because it is mendacious, but because
it is shaped, so that it may have a certain form. 9 Hencethe
Apostle says (cf. Romans 9:20): “Shall the thing formed
(figmentum)say to him that formed (fingere)it: Why hast
thou made me thus?” 3.Ceramic dishes are said to have
been first invented on the island of Samos, made from
white clay and hardened by fire, hence ‘Samian dishes.’
Afterwards it was discovered how to add red earth and
to fashion vessels with red clay.
The use of ceramic dishes was more ancient than the
practice of casting with bronze or silver, for the ancients
had dishes of neither gold nor silver, but of pottery – such
as the dolium devised for wine, the amphora for water,
the hydria for baths, and other vessels that are either
9 From fingere, the participle fictus means both “fashioned” and
“feigned.”
10 In classical Latin apophoreta (neuter plural) were “table gifts”
givenout at feasts; in Greek the singular adjective means
“carried away.” Isidore appears to take an apophoreta (feminine singular)
as something like a tray (for holding such gifts?).
The Etymologies XX.iii.19–iv.13 399
made on the wheel or shaped by hand for human use.
4. Potter’s clay (argilla) whenfiredisspokenofas‘pottery’
(testa), because from being soft it is ‘baked hard’
(tosta), and it does not keep its original name, because
it is not what it was. 5. Arretine (Arretinus) dishes are
named for the Italian city Arretium (i.e. Arezzo), where
they are made, and they are red. On these, Sedulius (Preface
to the Paschal Poem 16):
Vegetables which red pottery displays and serves.
6. Some think that Samian dishes got their name from
Samos, a town of Greece. Others say that there is a white
potter’s earth from Italy, produced not far from Rome,
that is called Samian. 7.Chased (caelatus)dishes are silver
or gold, modeled inside and out with figures that stand
out, so called from an engraver’s burin (caelum), which
is a kind of iron tool, which commonly is called a chisel
(cilio). 8. Chrysendetus vessels are those inlaid with gold;
the term is Greek (cf. ,“gold”; “bind on”).
Vessels in bas-relief (anaglypha)arethose carved on top,
for the Greek means “above,” , “carving,”
that is, carved above.
9. Adish (discus) formerly was named scus after its
resemblance to a shield (scutum); hence also ‘salver’
(scutella). Afterwards it was called discus because it ‘gives
food’ (dare escas), that is, it serves it – from this also
is ‘those reclining at table’ (discumbentes) –orelseit is
from the word (i.e. ,“throw”), that is, from
the thing they throw (i.e. ,“discus”). 10.Tableware
(messorium)issocalledfrom ‘table’ (mensa), as if it were
mensorium. Aparapsis is a four-sided dish with ‘compartments
of equal size’ (par apsis). A paten (patena),
because it has a spreading, open (patere,present participle
patens) rim.11. Platter (lancis, i.e. lanx) ...Gavata
(i.e. gabata, akind of dish), because it is ‘hollowed out’
(cavare,ppl. cavatus), with g put for the letter c.Likewise
also mussel-shell (conca, i.e. concha), but the former is
‘hollowedout’(cavatus), the latter is hollow (concavus):
the Greeks also make this distinction. A salver (scutella)
is the diminutive of shield (scutum), because it resembles
one. 12. Anapophoreta is so named by the Greeks
(i.e. ) from‘carrying fruits’ (ferre pomum)
or anything [else], for it is flat. 10
A salt-cellar (salinum) isavessel used for salt (sal).
A sulzica is the same thing, as if it were salzica. Avinegar
cruet (acitabulum), as if the word were acetaforum,
because it ‘carries vinegar’ (acetum ferre). 13. Spoons