aurifex

Latin[edit]

From aurum (“gold”) +‎ -fex (“suffix representing a maker or producer”).

aurifex m (genitive aurificis); third declension

A worker in gold, goldsmith.
- 77-79 AD — Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, 18.23
  Acus vocatur cum per se pisitur spica tantum aurificum ad usus.
  When the beard is ground by itself, without the grain, the result is known as acus, but it is only used by goldsmiths.

Padanian:
- Lombard: orees
  - → Romansch: urais
- Venetian: orese
  - → Friulian: orezi
Italo-Romance:
- Italian: orefice, orafo, orfo (Old Umbrian)
- Neapolitan: rofece (Abruzzo)
Southern Gallo-Romance:
- ⇒ Old Occitan: aurevelhier, daurezí (<*aurificīnus)
Ibero-Romance:
- ⇒ Mirandese: ouribeiro
- Old Galician-Portuguese: ourivez
  - Galician: ourive
  - Portuguese: ourives
- Old Spanish: orebze, orespe
  - Spanish: oribe, orebce
Borrowings:
- → Catalan: orífex
- → English: aurifex
- → Old Italian: orifice
- → Portuguese: aurífice
- → Sicilian: aurifichi (medieval)
- → Spanish: orífice

“aurifex”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
“aurifex”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
aurifex in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
aurifex in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002) “aurĭfex”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German), volumes 25: Refonte Apaideutos–Azymus, page 1006
Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1911) “aurifex”, in Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German), page 52