formaticus

Ellipsis of *cāseus fōrmāticus (“mould-cheese”), from fōrma (“form, mould”) +‎ -āticus, originally as opposed to unshaped fresh cheese.[1][2][3] For the formation compare the rare Classical fōrmāceus with its descendants (fōrmātum and fōrmācium in Isidore) in relation to moulded mud walls, as well as the single occurrence of fōrmulae in the sense of "moulds of cheese in preparation" in Late Latin.[4]

Attested from the turn of the 9th century in the Reichenau Glossary and the Karoli Magni capitularia. Judging by the shape of the Breton borrowing and the descendants' geographic spread, originated in Gaul (modern France) some centuries earlier. The word's descendants have been borrowed from Gallo-Romance into numerous other Romance varieties and even into Medieval Latin as the etymological doublet fōrmāgium.

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /foːrˈmaː.ti.kus/, [foːɾˈmäːt̪ɪkʊs̠]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /forˈma.ti.kus/, [fɔrˈmɑːt̪ikus]

• formaticum

fōrmāticus m (genitive fōrmāticī); second declension

1. (Late Latin, Medieval Latin, non-literary) cheese (chiefly Gaul/France)

Second-declension noun.

• cāseus
• fōrmāgium (Medieval Latin)
• fōrmella (cāseī) (Medieval Latin)
• Rare Medieval Latin variations:
  • formatis
  • firmaticus
  • formadeus
  • formarius
  • formasius

• → Middle Breton: fourondec, foulondec
• Franco-Provençal: fromâjo
• Old French: fromage, frumage, formage, fourmage (see there for further descendants)
• Old Occitan: [Term?]
  • Catalan: formatge
  • Occitan: formatge

• von Wartburg, Walther (1928–2002) , “formaticum”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German), volume 30, page 717
• formaticum in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• R. E. Latham, D. R. Howlett, & R. K. Ashdowne (eds.) (1975–2013) , “formaticus”, in Dictionary of medieval Latin from British sources‎, London: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, →ISBN, OCLC 1369101
• Blaise, Albert (1975) , “formaticum (-ticus, forma, formagium)”, in Dictionnaire latin-français des auteurs du moyen-âge: lexicon latinitatis medii aevi (Corpus christianorum) (in Latin, French), Turnhout: Brepols, page 396
• Niermeyer, Jan Frederik (1976) , “formaticus, formagium”, in Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden, Boston: Brill, page 446

• dMGH Beta - Monumenta Germania Historica
• “fromage” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).