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1804, R[obert] Montgomery Martin, quoting Yashwantrao Holkar, “Section II. European Intercourse—Rise and Growth of British Power.”, in The Indian Empire:, volume I (History, Topography, Population, Government, Finance, Commerce, and Staple Products), London; New York, N.Y.: The London Printing and Publishing Company, published , →OCLC, page 399, column 2:
[…] Lake [i.e., Gerard Lake, 1st Viscount Lake] should not have leisure to breathe for a moment, and calamities would fall on lacs of human beings in continued war by the attacks of his army, which would overwhelm like the waves of the sea.
From lact by simplification of a word-final sequence of two plosives (the variant nominative/accusative form lacte shows the addition of a vowel as an alternative). The etymology is controversial: there is no consensus on the cognate set, the manner of descent (inheritance vs. borrowing), or the form and ultimate orgin of the etymon. Possible cognates include Ancient Greekγάλα, γᾰ́λᾰκτ-/γᾰ́λᾰκ-(gála, gálakt-/gálak-, “milk”), Old Armenianկաթն(katʻn, “milk”) (or perhaps only its variant form Old Armenian*կաղց(*kałcʻ), reconstructed as the ancestor of modern dialectal Armenianկախց(kaxcʻ))Hittite𒂵𒆷𒀝𒋻(galaktar, “balm, resin”), Albaniandhallë(“buttermilk”), Romanianzară(“buttermilk”) and Waigalizōr(“milk”).
More information
Pokorny reconstructs the Latin and Greek words as inherited from Proto-Indo-European*glaktn from a root *glag- or *glak-. De Vaan derives the Latin, Greek and Armenian forms from Proto-Indo-European*gl̥gt-, and follows Meiser in explaining the loss of initial *g- in Latin as a result of long-distance dissimilation. Per Nielsen, the Latin and Greek words can be derived from *glakt-, Old Armenian*կաղց(*kałcʻ) can be derived from *g(a)l(ḱ)t- (requiring an initial non-palatal velar), and Albaniandhallë can perhaps be derived from *ǵal(K)- (requiring an initial palatal velar); on the basis of the variability in the initial consonant and the unusual root structure, Nielsen considers the root to be non-Indo-European in origin.
There have been attempts to derive the word instead from the root *h₂melǵ-(“milk”).
Garnier, Sagart and Sagot 2017 cite Garnier 2016's reconstruction of a verb *ambĭ-blactāre(“to milk with both hands”) > *amblactāre, supposing this was subsequently reanalyzed as *amb-lactāre and lost the prefix to yield the attested verb lactāre. The noun lac(t) would then derive by back-formation from the verb lactāre.
Forte sub umbrosis nemorosae vallibus Idae candidus, armenti gloria, taurus erat, signatus tenui media inter cornua nigro; una fuit labes, cetera lactis erant.
As fortune had it, in the shadowy valleys of forested Ida, there was a white bull, the glory of its herd, marked by slightly black colour between its horns; the blemish was (only) one, the rest were milk-white.
^ De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “lac”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 320
^ Romain Garnier, Laurent Sagart, Benoît Sagot (2017) “13. Milk and the Indo-Europeans”, in Martine Robbeets, Alexander Savelyev, editors, Language Dispersal Beyond Farming, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2.2.2, page 302
Further reading
“lac”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
“lac”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
lac 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)
Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book, London: Macmillan and Co.
(ambiguous) to imbibe error from one's mother's breasts: errorem cum lacte nutricis sugere (Tusc. 3. 1. 2)
Generally assumed to be a borrowing of Latinlacus(“basin, tank, tub, reservoir, pond”), displacing the native Old Frenchlai(“pit, grave, trench, mere, pond”), inherited from the same Latin term, by the early 13th century. Latinlacus derives from Proto-Italic*lakus, from Proto-Indo-European*lókus(“lake, pool”),
The displacement of Old Frenchlai may have been assisted by influence from early Middle Englishlac, lace(“lake, pond, pool", also "pit, ditch, trench”), from Old Englishlacu(“pool, pond, lake”), due to lac's sudden spread in Old French following the annexation of English controlled Normandy into the kingdom of France in 1204. An outright borrowing of the term from Middle English rather than from the Latin is also not outside the realm of possibility, as the earliest attestations of Old Frenchlac are in the Eadwine Psalter (written by Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman scribes in England) and Erec and Enide (an Arthurian romance, whose author was heavily influenced by English, Anglo-Norman, and Celtic writings).
The Old Occitanlac, laz, latz(“snare, noose", also "pit, hole”), which some theorise as leading to the Old French form (with c), is actually derived from a different Latin root related to Old Frenchlaz(“snare, noose, lace”), and possibly conflated with Old High Germanlacha(“ditch, trench, pool”). See Italianlacca(“hole, pit”).
Noun
lacoblique singular, m (oblique plurallas, nominative singularlas, nominative plurallac)
^ Todd, Terry Lynn (2008) Brigitte Werner, editor, A Grammar of Dimili (also Known as Zaza), an electronic version of printed second edition (2002), Giessen: Forum Linguistik in Eurasien e.V., page 145b