Parca

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Parca m or f by sense

1. a surname

• Stefano Ravara, Mappa dei Cognomi, 2015–2024

Suggestions include:

• parcō (“I spare”)
• pariō (“I give birth”)^[1]
• plicō, plectō (“I plait”)

Parca f (genitive Parcae); first declension

1. one of the Fates (one of the three goddesses who control destiny)
   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 1.21–22:

     hinc populum, lātē rēgem bellōque superbum,
     ventūrum excidiō Libyae: sīc volvere Parcās.

     Because these people, wide-ruling and proud in war,
     would come to destroy Libya: The Fates [were] thus to spin.
     (Rome would defeat Carthage in Libya; the Fates spun, measured and cut the metaphorical threads of life. See: Parcae. Notes: regem is an abbreviation of present active participle regentem or regnantem, “ruling”; bello is an ablative of respect, “in respect to war”; excidio is a dative of purpose, “for the destruction.” The grammar and idiom of sic volvere Parcas is variously interpreted, e.g.: “thus the Fates were spinning,” “the Fates had so decreed.”)

First-declension noun.

• “Parca”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “Parca”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• Parca in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpaɾka/ [ˈpaɾ.ka]
• Rhymes: -aɾka
• Syllabification: Par‧ca

Parca f

1. Grim Reaper