praemium

Etymology

From prae- (“before”) + emō (“acquire, obtain”), i.e. "what one has got before or better than others".

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈprae̯.mi.um/, [ˈpräe̯miʊ̃ˑ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈpre.mi.um/, [ˈprɛːmium]

Noun

praemium n (genitive praemiī or praemī); second declension

1. profit derived from booty
2. profit, advantage, prerogative, distinction

   Synonyms: commodum, profectus, usus, commoditās, lucrum

   Antonyms: incommodum, detrimentum, damnum

3. prize, reward, recompense
4. bribe, bribery

   Synonyms: mercēs, stīpendium, pretium, datum, donum, oblātiō, datiō, commodum

5. (figuratively), the ironical sense of a reward, etc., as a desired thought, feeling, result or outcome

   Synonym: pretium

   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 4.32-33:

     “[...] sōlāne perpetuā maerēns carpēre iuventā,
     nec dulcis nātōs, Veneris nec praemia nōris?”

     “[...] [will you] waste away alone, sorrowful all throughout your youth, never to have known sweet children, nor the rewards of Venus?”
     (That is, the pleasures of sexual love. Syncopation: nōris = nōveris. Translations vary – Mackail, 1885: “love’s bounty”; Knight, 1956: “all that Venus gives”; Mandelbaum, 1971: “the soft rewards”; Fitzgerald, 1981: “the crown of joy that Venus brings”; West, 1990: “the rewards of love”; Lombardo, 2005: “love’s joys”; Fagles, 2006: “all the gifts of love”; Ahl, 2007: “joys Venus offers, delights that she yields”.)

   • Spinoza, Ethica Liber V:

     Beatitudo non est virtutis praemium, sed ipsa virtus.

     Happiness is not a reward of virtue, but is a virtue itself.

References

• “praemium”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “praemium”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• praemium in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • to remunerate (handsomely): praemiis (amplissimis, maximis) aliquem afficere
    
  • to reward a man according to his deserts: meritum praemium alicui persolvere
    
  • (to encourage) by offering a reward: praemium exponere or proponere
    
  • to offer a prize (for the winner): praemium ponere