Expert: Maria - 11/26/2010

Question
Dear Maria
I am involved in a tricky translation into English , mining the Latin records of a monastery in the Czech Republic, circa 1650-1740, for weather information,  and have run into the word 'bruscum', which I find on the net only as some kind of bad growth on a tree. In my text, it is always related to cold weather and frost, as in 'Frost, bruscum' or 'Overcast, bruscum' (sorry, I don't have the Latin in front of me, only a rather unreliable double translation out of Czech). Perhaps some frost nodule or growth? Ugly icicle?

I have noted the excellence and accuracy of your other answers and hope that you can help with this one.

My own Latin is only school-classical (6 years, long ago) kept half-alive by being a biological/medical editor.

My thanks in advance

Tony Long

Answer
Dear Tony,

you are right: in classical Latin the neuter noun “bruscum” (2nd.declension) we read only in Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia,  book 16, chapter 38, means “knot / excrescence on the maple-tree”.

Anyway in late Latin there was the term “bruscum” that meant “butcher's broom” and  derived from  classical Latin “ruscum” or “ruscus”(see Virgil and Pliny ) just meaning “butcher's broom”.

Such a late  Latin noun “bruscum”, which  originally indicated a prickly shrub, was also  used to metaphorically denote  a “biting cold“ and then sometimes “a cloudy /overcast sky” or  “a  cloudy /overcast weather”/"frost" as this kind of wheather is pungent like the butcher's broom.

In short, I think that this is the reason why you have found  the Latin “bruscum”  in the Latin records of a monastery, circa 1650-1740, when obviously  it was the Late Latin that was used instead of the classical Latin and thus  the late Latin word “bruscum” was related to cold weather.

Lastly, I have to tell you that I believe that this is the correct explanation of the  term “bruscum”, though you did not send me the full phrase where such a word  is used.

Hope this can be helpful to you.
All the best and thank you for your kind words,
Maria