lanx

English

Etymology

From Latin lanx.

Noun

lanx (plural lances)

1. (historical) A platter or dish for serving food in Ancient Rome.

Latin

Etymology

Compare Ancient Greek λέκος (lékos, “dish, pan”), λεκάνη (lekánē, “basin, dish”) (whence English lecanomancy). Walde and Hoffmann, and Pokorny, suppose these words inherited from PIE and connected with words meaning "crooked", such as Latin licinus (“bent upward”), luxus (“dislocated”); the root Pokorny assigns^[1] is, in updated reconstruction, *Heh₃l- (“to bend, to turn”). De Vaan objects on phonological and semantic grounds (plates are not crooked) and favours Ernout and Meillet's assumption that Greek and Latin instead share a Mediterranean cultural loanword from substrate languages.^[2]

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /lanks/, [ɫ̪äŋks̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /lanks/, [läŋks]

Noun

lanx f (genitive lancis); third declension

1. dish, platter, plate
2. scalepan

Declension

Third-declension noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	lanx	lancēs
genitive	lancis	lancum
dative	lancī	lancibus
accusative	lancem	lancēs
ablative	lance	lancibus
vocative	lanx	lancēs

Derived terms

• aequilanx
• bilanx

Descendants

• Italian: lance

References

1. Pokorny, Julius (1959) “ĕl-ĕq-”, in Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch [Indo-European Etymological Dictionary] (in German), volume 1, Bern, München: Francke Verlag, pages 308-309
2. De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “lanx”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 326

Further reading

• “lanx”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “lanx”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• lanx in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “lanx”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “lanx”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin