Latin

Alternative forms

• balineum

Noun

balneum n ‎(genitive balneī); second declension

1. bath, bathing place, bathroom
   • (Can we date this quote?), Another Letter from Young M. Aurelius to Fronto, quoted in 1879 by Cruttwell and Banton (editors) in Specimens of Roman Literature: Passages Illustrative of Roman Thought and Style, section 188, page 599:

     […] discus crepuit, id est pater meus in balneum transisse nuntiatus est.

     The gong rang, it is announced that my father is going to the bath.

Inflection

The inflection of this noun was irregular. Usually, the plural became feminine and first declension with the specific meaning of a public place for bathing (e.g. public baths):

Since the Augustan period the following regular declension was sometimes used: Second declension.

Occasionally, the back-form balnea was used as a singular.

References

• balneum in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• balneum in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• BALNEUM in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• Félix Gaffiot (1934), “balneum”, in Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Paris: Hachette.
• balneum in Samuel Ball Platner (1929), Thomas Ashby, editor, A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, London: Oxford University Press

Descendants