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Q&A

Isn't lībra pondō circumlocutory? Because both lībra and pondō meant "weight"?

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Isn't lībra pondō redundant? It feels pleonastic and tautological — because both lībra and pondō meant "weight" — see below.

Wikipedia translates lībra pondō as "("the weight measured in libra"), in which the word pondo is the ablative singular of the Latin noun pondus ("weight")".

Etymology of libra

Janus Bahs Jacquet wrote that libra

originally meant ‘stone’, thence ‘pound weight’ (i.e., the little stone you put on scales to weigh things), thence ‘pound’ (the weight of one of those stones), and only from that was the meaning generalised to mean ‘weight’ in general.

Tim Lymington wrote that librum meant "'weight' as an abstract concept."

"You will also know Libra as the astrological sign, the seventh sign of the zodiac. In classical times that name was given to rather an uninspiring constellation, with no particularly bright stars in it. It was thought to represent scales or a balance, the main sense of libra in Latin, which is why it is often accompanied by the image of a pair of scales."

"It's from Latin libra, an ancient Roman unit of weight, likely from Proto-Italic *liθra."

Etymology of pondō

"pondo in Latin is the ablative of pondus, which is literally 'weight' (ablative being 'by weight')."

How do these quotations below distinguish lībra vs. pondō?

In my research, I stumbled these quotations below. But what do they mean? Are they relevant?

"It makes more sense if you explain that "libra", which meant "balance" is the actual word that came to mean the unit of weight. The "pondo" part precised the weight. "

“a pound by weight” as opposed to a pound by what other measure?

Edit: why the downvotes? Turns out there’s a mass pound as well as a weight pound, plus the English currency Pound.

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8 comment threads

x-post https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/14650/isnt-l%c4%abbra-pond%c5%8d-circumlocutory (1 comment)
x-post https://www.reddit.com/r/RomanHistory/comments/wcatq9/isnt_l%C4%ABbra_pond%C5%8D_circumlocutor... (1 comment)
x-post https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistory/comments/wcaup0/isnt_l%C4%ABbra_pond%C5%8D_circumlocutory_... (1 comment)
x-post https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/wcaunk/isnt_l%C4%ABbra_pond%C5%8D_circumlocutory_bec... (1 comment)
x-post https://www.reddit.com/r/ancientrome/comments/wcav2z/isnt_l%C4%ABbra_pond%C5%8D_circumlocutory... (1 comment)
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