Etymology Dictionary

CARNIVAL,  the feast held just before Lent.  (F.,—Ital.,—L.)   The spelling is a mistaken one; it should rather be carnaval, carneval, or carnoval.   'Our carnivals and Shrove-Tuesdays;' Hobbes, Of the kingdom of darkness, c. 45.   'The carnival of Venice;' Addison, On Italy, Venice.   It is rightly spelt carnaval in Blount's Glossographia, ed. 1674.—F. carnaval, Shrovetide; Cot.   Introduced from Ital. in the 16th cent. (Brachet).—Ital. carnovale, carnevale, the last three days before Lent.—Low Lat. carnelevamen, carnelevarium, carnilevaria, a solace of the flesh, Shrovetide; also spelt carnelevale in a document dated 1130, in Carpentier's supplement to Ducange.   Afterwards shortened from carnelevale to carnevale, a change promoted by a popular etymology which resolved the word into Ital. carne, flesh, and vale, farewell, as if the sense were 'farewell! O flesh.'   [Not 'farewell to flesh,' as Lord Byron attempts to explain it.]—Lat. carne-m, acc. of caro, flesh; and levare, to lighten, whence -levar-ium, a mitigation, consolation, -levale, i.e. mitigating, consoling, and levamen, a consolation; the latter being the true Lat. form.   See Carnal and Alleviate. [†]

ADDENDA

Littré explains Low Lat. carne-levamen as 'a taking away of the flesh,' but I can find no warrant for any such extraordinary interpretation of levamen.   It is true that Ducange gives carnisprivium, a deprivation of flesh, as one of the names for the days on which the faithful began their abstinence, such days beginning on the Sunday before Ash-Wednesday.   But the same days were regarded by the many in quite a different light, and hence we find such Low-Latin terms as carnis-capium, a taking of flesh, and carni-vora, a devouring of flesh, applied to Shrove-Tuesday and to the carnival.   I therefore incline to the opinion that carnelevamen, carniscapium, and carnivora (names for Shrove-Tuesday) all refer to feasting, and that levamen has its usual sense of 'solace.'   The F. Mardi gras, lit. 'fat Tuesday,' is unambiguous.