abditus
Forms
abditus (feminine abdita, neuter abditum); first/second-declension adjective[1]
Etymology
Used as an adjective, it is the past participle from Latin abdō (“to put away, hide”).[1][2] De Vaan counts abdō among the compounds of -dō, which go back to Proto-Italic *-þō and the root Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to put”), whose simple verb Latin has not kept.[3] Cognate with Ancient Greek τίθημι (títhēmi, “to put”).[3]
Earliest recorded meaning
Köbler's first source is Cicero,[4] who speaks of animals hidden and covered with earth.[1]
Semantic evolution
It means hidden from sight or concealed, and of places out of the way or secluded, as Cicero's “what place was so remote that it was hidden?”[1] Lucretius uses the neuter plural as a noun, of the hidden parts of the earth that miners search out with iron.[1] Figuratively it is hidden from knowledge, abstruse, as Cicero's “hidden and obscure things”, and of expressions obscure in meaning.[1] Church Latin glosses it “concealed, hidden”.[5]
Timeline
- 96–55 BC – Lucretius of the hidden parts of the earth.[1][4]
- 81–43 BC – Cicero of hidden animals, remote places and abstruse matters.[1][4]
Meanings
Adjective
- Hidden, concealed; of places, remote, secluded; as a noun, hidden places.[1][5]
- Hidden from knowledge, abstruse, recondite; of expressions, obscure.[1]
Related words
- abdō
- abditīvus
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
- ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
- ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson