I am recently arrived in Rome having sold my extensive country estate. I am interested in all meanings associated with certain Latin words--words which will ultimately be spoken throughout the empire and, as I suppose, through the future centuries and throughout the empire.
November 27, 2003
Fr BRUME - Eng BRIEF
Posted at 11:00 EST
An interesting meaning development:
Lat BREVIS 'brief, short' when suffixed gave rise to Lat BRUMA 'winter solstice' (shortest day of the year) and BRUMALIS 'wintery'. The former evidently combined with the meaning of the latter to derive French BRUME 'foggy', a cognate with French BREVE 'brief', borrowed into Old English and so to Modern English BRIEF. The original Latin root can still be found in Italian BREVE 'short'.
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