anhelitus

Forms

anhēlitus m (genitive anhēlitūs); fourth declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin anhēlō (“to pant”) + -tus, formed like spīritus.^[2][3] De Vaan takes anhēlō as a verb from anhēlus (“panting”), which he traces to Proto-Italic *anaslo- (“breath”) and Proto-Indo-European *h₂enh₁-slo- (“a breathing”), comparing Sanskrit अनिति (ániti, “breathes”); its ⟨h⟩ may be imitative or taken from hālō (“to breathe”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Plautus.^[5] In the OLD's earliest quotation Plautus says that mist is made of breath and panting.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is shortness of breath, panting, from exertion, as in Plautus' ⟨anhēlitum dūcere⟩, to pant, and as a symptom of disease, as in Ovid.^[2][6] It is also panting from emotion: a declamation has someone made to spend life in gasps and fears.^[2] It is simply breath: in Plautus someone is told to get his breath back.^[2] It is breath that reeks: Cicero speaks of breath smelling of wine.^[2] Cicero also uses it of exhalations from the earth that inspired minds to give oracles.^[2] Lewis & Short note it as the classical word beside post-Augustan ⟨anhēlātiō⟩.^[6] Niermeyer records the medieval sense fervent desire.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of panting and of getting one's breath back.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of reeking breath and of the earth's exhalations.^[2][5]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid of panting in disease.^[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Shortness of breath, panting, gasping.^[2][6][1]
2. Breath; reeking breath.^[2][1]
3. An exhalation, especially of the earth; vapour.^[2][1]
4. (Medieval Latin) Fervent desire.^[7]

Related words

• anhēlō
• anhēlus

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 m Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill