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scaena

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Latin

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Ancient Greek σκηνή (skēnḗ). Seemingly with a hypercorrective /ae̯/ > /eː/ in reaction to an opposite trend (cf. haedus, saeta > ēdus, sēta).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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scaena f (genitive scaenae); first declension

  1. stage
    • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 4.471–472:
      [...] aut Agamemnonius scēnīs agitātus Orestēs
      armātam facibus mātrem et serpentibus ātrīs [...].
      [...] or [like] Agamemnon’s [son] Orestes, tormented onstage [by his dead] mother [who is] armed with torches and black snakes, [...].
      (A poetic plural reference to theatrical performances of the tragedy.)
    • 116 BCE – 27 BCE, Marcus Terentius Varro, De lingua Latina 7.96:
      “Obscaenum” dictum ab “scaena”; eam, ut Graeci, Accius scribit “scena”.
      Obscaenum ‘foul’ is said from scaena ‘stage’; this word Accius writes scena, like the Greeks.
  2. scene
  3. theatre
  4. (transferred) natural scenery, background, backdrop
    • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 1.164–165:
      [...] tum silvīs scēna coruscīs
      dēsuper; horrentīque ātrum nemus imminet umbrā.
      Further on [there is] a backdrop with waving woods above; a dark forest overhanging and trembling with shade.
  5. publicity, the public eye
  6. euphemism for death with dēcēdo

Declension

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First-declension noun.

singular plural
nominative scaena scaenae
genitive scaenae scaenārum
dative scaenae scaenīs
accusative scaenam scaenās
ablative scaenā scaenīs
vocative scaena scaenae

Derived terms

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Descendants

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References

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