cachinnus

Forms

cachinnus m (genitive cachinnī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is of imitative origin, beside the verb cachinnō (“to laugh loudly”).^[2][1] Wiktionary compares Sanskrit खक्खति (khakkhati, “laughs”),^[1] and Köbler an interjection ⟨*ka⟩ “ha”.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Lucilius.^[3] Lucretius speaks of a time when laughter was sweet.^[4]

Semantic evolution

It is a loud or boisterous laugh, a guffaw, often in derision: Cicero has Alcibiades setting up a loud laugh and a speaker provoking the laughter of mockers in the Brutus, and Horace and Suetonius use cachinnum tollere, to burst out laughing.^[4] Catullus and Juvenal use it, and Suetonius has someone pouring himself out in laughter in the Life of Caligula.^[4] Catullus also applies it to the plashing of rippling waves, as Aeschylus speaks of the laughter of the sea.^[2][4]

Timeline

• c. 180–102 BC – Lucilius.^[3]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius, of laughter.^[4][3]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of mocking laughter.^[4][3]
• 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus, of rippling waves.^[2][4][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A loud laugh, guffaw; jeering laughter.^[2][4][1]
2. (poetic) The plashing of waves.^[2][4][1]

Word family

• cachinnō
• cachinnōsus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press