capillatus

Forms

capillātus (feminine capillāta, neuter capillātum, comparative capillātior); first/second-declension adjective^[1] The comparative is capillātior.^[2][1]

Etymology

It is from Latin capillus (“hair”) + -ātus.^[2][3][1] De Vaan finds the usual derivation of capillus from caput (“head”) difficult in both form and meaning.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Cicero,^[5] who describes a man with longer hair and a bigger beard than before, and Juba, a young man as well supplied with money as with hair.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

It means having long hair, or having hair.^[2][1] Long hair marked the old days, when it was not cut: Juvenal has wine bottled when the consuls were long-haired.^[2][6] It was also a feature of foreign peoples and of boys and youths, often slaves: Petronius has a bald old man playing ball among long-haired boys.^[2] Pliny the Elder names a tree capillāta because the Vestals' hair was brought to it, and uses the word of hair-like leaves.^[2] Döderlein notes that capillus is the hair of the head, as opposed to the beard.^[7]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of long hair.^[2][5]
• before 66 AD – Petronius, of long-haired boys.^[2][5]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder, of a tree and of hair-like leaves.^[2][5]
• c. 67–c. 127 AD – Juvenal, of the long-haired consuls of old.^[2][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Having hair, long-haired.^[2][6][1]
2. Of leaves or roots, hair-like.^[2]

Related words

• capillus
• comātus
• crīnītus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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. ^ 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper