On 2007-06-12 01:20, Sean Whalen wrote:
> But the meanings suggest ra:dula is older (that is,
> it's had time to develop a specific meaning different
> than the verb), though I wouldn't argue from that
> alone.
Why a different meaning? The meanings of <ra:do:> given by Lewis & Short
are 'scrape, scratch, shave, rub, or smooth; of the hair, to shave off
with a razor (while tondere is to cut off with shears ...)', and <caput
ra:sum> is a particularly frequent collocation (even Google yields a few
dozen hits for "capite raso", as I checked a moment ago). Why should the
meaning 'razor' be more special than that of <ra:strum> 'rake'?
Piotr