attonitus

Forms

attonitus (feminine attonita, neuter attonitum); first and second declension^[2] It is also spelled adtonitus.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is in origin the past participle of attonō (“to stun, stupefy”), a verb formed from Latin ad- + tonō (“to thunder”).^[2][3][1] Wiktionary traces ⟨tonō⟩ through Proto-Italic *tonaō to Proto-Indo-European *(s)tenh₂- (“to thunder”), and the OLD compares Old High German donar (“thunder”) and Old English þunor (“thunder”).^[1][2] Servius says that the word properly means someone near whom lightning has struck, stunned by the thunder.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it once in Sallust's Histories, of a man struck as if by terror (quasi formīdine attonitus); it is common in prose from Livy on and in poetry from Virgil on.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Its literal sense is struck by lightning or stunned by thunder, and Celsus uses it of people struck senseless by lightning or by a seizure.^[2][3] Most often it is stupefied by an emotion: paralysed by fear, as Virgil's snakes, stunned by grief, dumbfounded with wonder, or awed, as Aeneas at the gods' command.^[2] Horace's poet is attonitus in divine frenzy, Livy's revellers are crazed with wine and noise, and Pliny the Elder has Britain absorbed in magic.^[2]

Church Latin glosses it “stunned, astonished”.^[4]

Timeline

• 86–34 BC – Sallust of someone struck with terror.^[3][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of fear, wonder and awe.^[2][5]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of people crazed by wine and noise.^[2][5]
• 14–37 AD – Celsus of people struck by lightning or a seizure.^[3][5]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder in the sense “absorbed in”.^[2][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Struck by lightning; stunned by thunder or a seizure.^[2][3]
2. Stupefied, dazed (by fear, grief or wonder); awestruck.^[2][4]
3. Inspired, in a divine frenzy.^[2]
4. Crazed, frantic.^[2]
5. Intent (on), absorbed (in).^[2]

Related words

• attonō
• tonō
• tonitrus

Usage notes

Döderlein distinguishes attonitus, “thunderstruck”, a passing state, from stupēns, a lasting, petrified one;^[6] Curtius has attonitī et stupentibus similēs.^[6]

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 n o Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper