anilis

Forms

anīlis (neuter anīle, adverb anīliter); third-declension two-termination adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin anus² (“old woman”) + -īlis.^[2][1][3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Cicero,^[4] who calls a superstition the mark of a weak, old-womanish mind.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

It is what belongs to or is typical of an old woman: Virgil has Dido's nurse hurry her steps with an old woman's eagerness, and Ovid an old woman's gait.^[3][5] Often it is contemptuous, old-womanish, above all of superstitious credulity and old wives' tales: Cicero speaks of follies that are almost old-womanish.^[2][5] The OLD also has it of a blow dealt by an old woman.^[2] The adverb anīliter is in Cicero.^[5] Church Latin glosses it old-womanish.^[6]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero of old-womanish superstition.^[2][5][4]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of an old woman's eagerness.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of or typical of an old woman; dealt by an old woman.^[2][5][1]
2. Old-womanish, anile; of tales, old wives'.^[2][5][1][6]

Word family

• anīlitās
• anīliter

Related words

• anus²

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d e f g 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