albatus

Forms

albātus (feminine albāta, neuter albātum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin albus (“white”) + -ātus, formed like ātrātus (“clothed in black”) from āter (“black”).^[2][3] Its base goes back to Proto-Italic *alfo- (“white”) and Proto-Indo-European *h₂elbʰ-o- (“white”).^[4] The noun albātus, the white party of the circus, is the adjective used as a noun.^[2]

Ancient grammarians explained it from the white dress: Varro compares the pair albus : albātus with magister : magistrātus,^[5][6] and Isidore of Seville derives it from a white garment.^[5][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first recorded in Cicero, who describes the host of a feast who was himself dressed in white.^[3][8]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Latin it described people wearing white clothes,^[2][3] which the TLL notes was usually done for festive days and occasions of celebration.^[5] In the circus one of the racing factions was dressed in white, and Pliny the Elder calls its members albātī;^[3] the OLD treats this noun as a separate head word derived from the adjective.^[2]

Among Christians the word was used of the newly baptised, who wore white,^[5][9] and in medieval Latin it could mean dressed in an alb or in an acolyte's tunic.^[10]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of a man dressed in white at a feast.^[3][8]
• 65–8 BC – Horace uses it in the Satires.^[3][8]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder names the white faction of the circus albātī.^[3][8]
• c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius uses it.^[3][8]
• medieval period – It is used of the newly baptised in their white robes.^[9]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Clothed in white.^[2][3]
2. (Ecclesiastical Latin) Clad in white after baptism, newly baptised.^[9][5]
3. (Medieval Latin) Wearing an alb or the white tunic of the acolytes.^[10]

Noun

1. (plural) The white faction in chariot racing.^[2][3]

Usage notes

Wiktionary also lists albātus as the perfect passive participle of albō (“to whiten”), with the sense “whitened”.^[1] Lewis & Short compare russātus, the name of the red faction.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
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 Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ Marcus Terentius Varro, De lingua Latina (text of The Latin Library; book and paragraph numbers as there).
7. ^ Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911).
8. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
9. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
10. ^ a b Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften