Etimologii

Isidore of Seville

Etymologies

(sec. VI-VII d.Hr.)

The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, translated by Stephen A. Barney, W.J. Lewis, J.A. Beach, Oliver Berghof,
with the collaboration of Muriel Hall, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2006

 

 

Ignorant (ignarus), “not knowing (gnarus),” that is, unknowing, that is, without a nose (nares), for the ancients called knowing “sniffing out.” Moreover, ignarus means two things: either one who ‘knows not’ (ignorare), or one who is not known. Ignarus, one who knows not.

(X.I.142, pp. 221-222)

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Smell (odoratus) is so called as if it meant ‘touched by the smell’ (odoris adtactus) of the air, for it is activated when the air is touched. So one also says ‘olfactory sense’ (olfactus), because one is ‘affected by smells’ (odoribus adficere).

(XI.i.22, p. 232)

*

Nostrils (naris, ablative nare) are so called, because through them odor and breath ceaselessly ‘swim’ (nare), or because they warn us with odor, so that we ‘know’ (noscere, with forms in nor-) and understand something. Hence the opposite: those who do not know anything and who are unrefined are called ignorant (ignarus). Our forefathers used the word for ‘smelling something’ (olfacere) to mean knowing (scire), as in Terence (cf. The Brothers 397):

And would they not have ‘sniffed it out’ (olfacere) six whole months before he started anything?

(XI.i.47, 234)