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avius

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Etymology and origin of the Latin word avius

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
c. 250–184 BC, Plautus
Ultimate origin
Latin (via)
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin via
English via
English trivia
French voie
Latin viator
Latin devius
Latin invius
Latin avius
Latin trivium
Latin trivialis
English trivial
Latin praevius
English previous

Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈaː.wi.ʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈaː.vi.us][1]

Forms

āvius (feminine āvia, neuter āvium); first/second-declension adjective[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ab- (“away from”) + via (“way, road”) + -us, “away from the road”.[2][3][1] Lewis & Short contrast it with dēvius, leading away from the right way, and invius, having no way at all,[4] and a fragment of Suetonius defines it as winding.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it from Plautus on, though not in Cicero.[3] In the Aulularia a grove of Silvanus outside the wall is lonely and unfrequented.[2]

Semantic evolution

It is used of places without roads, trackless and unvisited, and with a dative inaccessible, as Livy's places beyond the reach of supplies.[2] It also means out of the way, remote, and predicatively far off, as Virgil's warrior hiding himself far off in the mountains.[2][4] A third sense is going astray: Lucretius uses it of Phaethon carried off course, and of a person who strays far from true reasoning.[2] It is mostly a word of the poets and historians.[4]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of an unfrequented grove.[2][5]
  • 96–55 BC – Lucretius of going astray.[2][5]
  • 70–19 BC – Virgil of a warrior hiding far off.[2][5]
  • 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of places out of reach of supplies.[2][5]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Without roads, trackless, unfrequented; with a dative, inaccessible.[2][4][1]
  2. Out of the way, remote; at a distance, far off.[2][4][1]
  3. Going astray, off course; departing from the right way of thinking.[2][4][1]

Word family

  • āvium

Usage notes

A noun avius, “grandfather”, made as a masculine to avia “grandmother”, appears in some inscriptions of the Empire and again in texts from 780 on.[1] The TLL refers it to avus.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. ^ a b c 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
Cite this entry

“Avius.” Etymologically, 19 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/la/avius. Accessed 20 Oct. 2026.

Last edited on . ·