atratus

Forms

ātrātus (feminine ātrāta, neuter ātrātum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin āter (“black”) + -ātus, formed as if from a verb ⟨ātrō⟩, which is not attested.^[2][3][4] Varro already derived it from āter.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest example is in Caecilius Statius, ātrātīs dentibus, “with blackened teeth”.^[2][3][5]

Semantic evolution

Besides “darkened, blackened”, as in Propertius' black horses of the sun,^[3][2] it meant “dressed in black”, especially in mourning: Cicero asks who ever dined in mourning clothes, and Tacitus and Suetonius use it of mourners.^[2][4] Suetonius also uses it of suppliants.^[4]

Timeline

• 230/220–168 BC – Caecilius Statius uses it of blackened teeth.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it for people dressed in mourning.^[2][5]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus uses it of the mourning people.^[4][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Darkened, blackened, dingy.^[2][1]
2. Dressed in black, in mourning.^[2][4]

Word family

• obātrātus
• sēmiātrātus

Usage notes

Ātrātus was also the name of a small river near Rome which, Cicero reports, once ran with blood.^[4][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de