canities

Forms

cānitiēs f (genitive cānitiēī); fifth declension^[1] Pliny the Elder has cānitia.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin cānus (“grey, hoary”) + -itiēs.^[2][1][4] De Vaan traces cānus to Proto-Italic *kasno- (“grey”) and Proto-Indo-European *ḱh₁s-no- (“grey”), the root of the word for the hare in other languages, as Old English hara (“hare”) and Sanskrit शश (śaśá, “hare”).^[5] Isidore derived it from candor (“whiteness”), as if ⟨candities⟩.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL dates it from Catullus.^[4] Catullus has grey hair sullied with earth.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

It is a white or grey colour, as of feathers in Ovid and of a wolf's coat.^[2][3] Usually it is greyness of the hair, implying old age, and grey hair itself; by metonymy it is old age, as in Virgil, and old people.^[2] Pliny the Elder uses it of the down on plants and of a white deposit of salt, and has the form ⟨cānitia⟩.^[2][3] Lewis & Short call it poetic or post-Augustan prose, and the TLL notes it is rare in prose.^[3][4] Church Latin glosses it old age, grey hair.^[7]

Timeline

• 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus of grey hair.^[2][4][6]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of old age.^[2][6]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid of grey feathers and of his own grey hair.^[2][6]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder of down on plants.^[2][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A white or grey colour, hoariness.^[2][3][1]
2. Greyness of the hair; grey hair.^[2][1][7]
3. By metonymy, old age; old people.^[2][1][7]
4. Down on plants; a white deposit of salt.^[2]

Related words

• cānus
• cānēscō

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson