caligo

Forms

cālīgō f (genitive cālīginis); third declension^[1] It is sometimes written callīgō.^[2]

Etymology

Like other nouns in -īgō it may be formed from an adjective, perhaps Proto-Italic *kāli- (“dark”), but the origin is uncertain.^[3][1] The OLD compares Sanskrit काल (kāla, “black, dark blue”) and Ancient Greek κηλάς (kēlás, “mottled”); de Vaan notes that the Sanskrit word is still accepted by Leumann but rejected by Mayrhofer, keeps the Greek words, including κηλῑ́ς (kēlī́s, “stain, spot”), and thinks the likeliest Latin cognate is calidus (“with a white mark on the forehead”).^[4][3] Köbler links it to a root Proto-Indo-European *kāl- (“spotted”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler give Plautus as its first author,^[3][5] and the TLL adds Ennius, whose tragedy has “a darkness arose”.^[6][4]

Semantic evolution

It is a condition that hides or excludes sight: the darkness of night or storms, as Cato's eclipses when darkness blocks the light of moon or sun, and the darkness of the underworld.^[4] It is the obscurity of mist or fog, of dust and of thick smoke, as Lucretius' torches “with much murk”, and in the poets and post-Augustan prose a mist or vapour.^[4][2] Of the eyes it is blurred sight, as Livy's soldiers dizzy with the height of the ladders, and the darkness of death, blindness or a faint.^[4]

Figuratively it is gloom, as Cicero's money hidden “in that darkness” that covered the state, moral or intellectual darkness, and the dizziness of sudden good fortune in Seneca.^[4] Church Latin glosses it “darkness, cloud, mist, dark cloud”.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus.^[3][5]
• 204–169 BC – Ennius of a darkness rising.^[4][6][5]
• 234–149 BC – Cato of darkness blocking the light of moon or sun.^[4][5]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius of the murk of smoke.^[4][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of gloomy circumstances and moral darkness.^[4][5]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of dizziness.^[4][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Darkness, gloom (of night, storms, the underworld).^[4][1]
2. Mist, fog; a cloud of dust or smoke.^[4][1][2]
3. Dimness of sight; the darkness of death, blindness or a faint.^[4]
4. (figurative) Gloom, dark circumstances; moral or intellectual darkness; dizziness.^[4][1]

Word family

• cālīgineus
• cālīginōsus
• cālīgōsus
• cālīgātiō

Related words

• calidus
• nebula
• tenebrae

Usage notes

The first-conjugation verb cālīgō (infinitive cālīgāre), “to be dark; to see dimly”, is formed from the noun; it is found from Cicero on, and perhaps already in Pacuvius as “to make dark”.^[3][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e 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 g h i j k l m n o p Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson