aestuosus

Forms

aestuōsus (feminine aestuōsa, neuter aestuōsum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin aestus (“heat, swell of the sea”) + -ōsus (“full of”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan derives aestus, with aestās (“summer”), from Proto-Italic *aissu- and Proto-Indo-European *h₂eidʰ-tu- (“burning, heat”), with the suffix restored in Latin.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL and Köbler record it from Plautus on,^[3][5] who in the Bacchides calls a courtesan acerrume aestuosa, seething like a flood that swallows whoever she touches.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

Its commonest sense is very hot, sweltering: Cicero travels on an aestuosa et pulverulenta via, a hot and dusty road, Catullus has hot Nicaea, Horace sweltering Calabria and Pliny the Elder a hot south wind.^[2][7][8] Columella uses it of an animal that suffers from heat, the pig, and Pliny of food that heats the body.^[2][8] Of water it means seething, raging, as in Horace's fretis aestuosis.^[2][6] Conte notes that Horace's Syrtis aestuosas is read both as the burning Syrtes of the desert and as their seething shoals.^[8] Lewis and Short cite an adverb aestuōsē, hotly, with its comparative in Horace.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of a courtesan who swallows all like a flood.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of a hot road.^[2][5]
• 65–8 BC – Horace uses it of hot regions and seething seas.^[2][5]
• 1st century AD – Columella uses it of the pig's high body heat.^[2][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Very hot, sweltering, sultry.^[2][7]
2. Having a high body heat; causing heat in the body.^[2][8]
3. Of water, seething, raging; figuratively, devouring like a flood.^[2][6]

Related words

• aestus
• aestuō
• aestās

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier