annosus

Forms

annōsus (feminine annōsa, neuter annōsum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin annus (“year”) + -ōsus.^[2][1] De Vaan traces annus to Proto-Italic *atno- (“year”) and Proto-Indo-European *h₂et-no-, from a root "to go", so that the year is what goes round.^[3] He compares Oscan akeneí (“in the year”) and Umbrian acnu (“year”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler's first source is Horace, who has a long-lived crow.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

Lewis & Short call it a favourite of the Augustan poets and later prose: Ovid has an old woman, Tibullus old wine, Virgil ancient oaks and an aged ash, Horace a long-lived crow.^[5] It is full of years, old, immemorial, and it qualifies age itself, as Ovid's long old age.^[2] It can mean lasting many years: Ovid has a long delay.^[2] Augustine has the comparative ⟨annōsior⟩ and the superlative ⟨annōsissimus⟩.^[6] Köbler finds it in a charter of 889.^[4]

Timeline

• 70–19 BC – Virgil of ancient trees.^[5][4]
• 65–8 BC – Horace of a long-lived crow.^[5][4]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid of an old woman and of long old age.^[5][2][4]
• 354–430 AD – Augustine has the comparative and superlative.^[6][4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Full of years, aged, long-lived, old, immemorial.^[2][5][1]
2. Of age itself, long.^[2]
3. Lasting many years, long.^[2]

Word family

• annōsitās

Related words

• annus
• annuus

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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 de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften