Etymologically
Log in

albatus

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 24 October 2026 at 17:02. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • Classical: [aɫˈbaː.tʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [alˈbaː.tus][1]

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