calliditas

Forms

calliditās f (genitive calliditātis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin callidus (“clever, crafty”) + -tās.^[2][1][3] The OLD derives callidus from calleō “to be hard; to know how”, which de Vaan derives from callum “hard skin”, perhaps from an adjective Proto-Italic *kaln/so- (“hard”); he finds its Indo-European origin uncertain.^[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Terence,^[5] who has the plural.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Lewis & Short note that it is used in a good and a bad sense.^[6] In a good sense it is cleverness, skill: the Rhetorica ad Herennium defines prudence as the cleverness that can choose between good and bad, and Nepos speaks of cleverness of mind.^[2][6] More often it is craftiness or cunning, and in the plural subtle tricks: Cicero says a man's head and shaven eyebrows seem to smell of malice and cry out cunning.^[2] Cicero also says that knowledge divorced from justice should be called cunning rather than wisdom, after Plato.^[3] Glosses render it with Ancient Greek πανουργία (panourgía, “knavery”) and ⟨astūtia⟩.^[3] Church Latin glosses it craftiness.^[7]

Timeline

• 190–159 BC – Terence.^[3][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of cunning.^[2][3][5]
• c. 100–24 BC – Nepos of cleverness of mind.^[6][5]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid.^[6][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Cleverness, skill, shrewdness.^[2][6][1]
2. Craftiness, cunning, slyness;^[2][6][1][7] (plural) subtle tricks.^[2][6][1][7]

Related words

• callidus

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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 f Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson