aetherius

Forms

aetherius (feminine aetheria, neuter aetherium); first/second-declension adjective^[1] It is also spelled aethereus, which Saalfeld's Tensaurus calls a false form.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek αἰθέριος (aithérios, “of the upper air”), from αἰθήρ (aithḗr, “upper air”), the source of aethēr.^[2][1][4][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its earliest examples in the OLD are Cicero's poem on his consulship, “Jupiter inflamed with ethereal fire”, and Lucretius, whose stars are “fixed to the ethereal vaults”.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

It is of the upper air, the sky or the heavens, the home of the gods, and Jupiter is the pater or rēx aetherius, as in Ovid.^[2] It is also situated in or borne through the sky, as Lucretius' shout scattered among the clouds, and of mountains reaching to the sky, as Tibullus' Taurus.^[2]

It is heaven-sent or divine, as Virgil's bees with “a draught of the ether”, and of persons divinely inspired.^[2] Opposed to the underworld it is of the world of the living, as Lucretius' aetheriās vītālis … aurās, the life-giving air of day.^[2] Church Latin glosses it “airy, of heaven, ethereal”.^[6]

Timeline

• 96–55 BC – Lucretius of the stars and of the air of the living.^[2][5][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of Jupiter's ethereal fire.^[2][4]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of the divine draught of bees.^[2][4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of the upper air or heavens, heavenly, ethereal;^[2][5][1] rēx aetherius, Jupiter.^[2][5][1]
2. In the sky, aloft; lofty.^[2]
3. Heaven-sent, divine; divinely inspired.^[2][6]
4. Of the world of the living (as against the underworld).^[2]

Related words

• aethēr
• caelestis
• aerius
• English ethereal

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
4. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson