Etymologically
Log in

aliunde

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 20 October 2026 at 02:44. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Forms

aliunde (not comparable)[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin alius (“other”) + unde (“whence”), with the stem ⟨ali-⟩.[2][1][3] De Vaan traces alius to Proto-Italic *al-jo- (“another”) and Proto-Indo-European *h₂el-io- (“another”), comparing Ancient Greek ἄλλος (állos, “other”).[4] Wiktionary compares alicunde.[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first quotations are in Plautus: in the Poenulus someone is to pretend to be a stranger from another town, and in the Pseudolus someone says “I will give it, don't look elsewhere”.[2]

Semantic evolution

It means from another place, from elsewhere, and with ⟨aliō⟩ from place to place: Seneca has the sun moving from place to place, and Livy people gathering, some from one place, some from another.[2] It also means from another source or quarter, or from another person or thing: Cicero holds that the greatest praise of wisdom is not to depend on others.[2] Of material it is of a different stuff: Pliny the Elder says the whole Odyssey consists of nothing else but magic.[2] Seneca uses aliunde aliō of people who flit from one desire to another, and it can also mean for a different reason.[2] Lewis & Short note that it is most frequent in Cicero, and the TLL that it is rare in the poets.[5][3] Church Latin glosses it by another way, from another person or place.[6]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a stranger from another town.[2][7]
  • 96–55 BC – Lucretius of a name drawn from elsewhere.[5][7]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of not depending on others.[2][7]
  • 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca of the sun moving from place to place.[2][7]

Meanings

Adverb

  1. From another place, from elsewhere;[2][5][1][6] aliunde aliō, from place to place.[2][5][1][6]
  2. From another source or quarter; from another person or thing.[2][5]
  3. Of a different material; from one subject to another.[2]
  4. For a different reason.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  7. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de