Lucus a non lucendo: Enantiosemy in Ancient Latin Lexicography

Abstract

Abstract Enantiosemes, words which express opposed meanings (also called auto-antonyms; e.g. altus, which can mean “high” or “low”, or the English “cleave”, which can mean “cut” or “stick together”), present a practical problem for the lexicographer. My paper surveys enantiosemes as they are explicitly discussed by ancient Roman lexicographers and provides a descriptive typology. Roman scholars distinguish between genuine auto-antonyms, which they sometimes call voces mediae (e.g. valetudo for “health” or “sickness”), and cases of etymology by antiphrasis (e.g. lucus a non lucendo), whereby a name is given through some kind of opposition. This latter group of etymologies-by-antiphrasis can be further subdivided between cases of euphemism and irony. The paper concludes with a short lexicon of Latin enantiosemes explicitly discussed by ancient sources.