"an eater of vegetables." Your learned townsman, my old friend Mr. Roby,[1] has cited many nouns substantive and adjective ending in—arius ＝ Engl.—arian.[2]
All of these are derived from nouns substantive or adjective, none from verbs. Professor Skeat was misled by a borrowed definition. Antiquus, "ancient;" antiqua, "antiques;" antiquarius, "one who studies, deals in, has to do with, antiques—an antiquary or antiquarian." So vegetarius, "one who studies, has to do with, vegeta." What vegetus means you shall hear from impartial lips:—
Vegetus, whole, sound, strong, quick, fresh, lively, lusty, gallant, trim, brave; vegeto, to refresh, recreate, or make lively, lusty, quick and strong, to make sound.—Thomas Holyoke, Latin Dictionary. London. 1677.
Ainsworth adds to the senses of "Vegetus," agile, alert, brisk, crank, pert, flourishing, vigorous, fine, seasonable; and renders the primitive "vegeo" to be lusty and strong, or sound and whole; to make brisk or mettlesome; to refresh.
The word vegetarius belongs to an illustrious family. Vegetable, which has been called its mother, is really its niece.[3]Vegetation, vigil, vigilant, vigour, invigorate, wake, watch, wax, augment, authority; the Gr. ὑγιὴς (sound); Hygieia, the
- ↑ Latin Grammar. Vol. I, paragraph 942.
- ↑ "Pap- (or porridge-) eater" is not pultarius, but pultiphagus, a name applied by Plautus to the Roman of the Punic wars. So highly among the ancients in their prime, was breadcorn honoured as the staff of life. In Greek-Latin glossaries the Gr. termination πὠλης, Lat.—pola, Engl. monger, seller or dealer, answers in many cases to Lat.—arius. Thus, caeparius, carnarius, cerarius, frumentarius, lactarius, lactucarius, lardarius, piscarius, pomarius, rosarius, suarius ＝ a dealer in onions, flesh-meat, wax, corn, milk, lettuces, bacon, fish, apples, roses, swine, respectively. Armamentarius is a neat-herd; caprarius, a goat-herd; equarius, a groom; lanarius, a worker in wool; porcarius, also suarius, a swine-herd;ovarius (not egg-eater, but) egg-keeper; pullarius, a keeper of the sacred chickens. Even vegetabiliarian (portentous birth!) would denote, not vegetable-eater, but greengrocer or market-gardener. To be fair and above-board, I throw out a straw for drowning men to catch at: vinarius, elsewhere "vintner," is once cited from the Digest in the sense of "wine-bibber." Here is a crumb of comfort for carpers at our name. They may search long for a second.
- ↑
