carus

Forms

cārus (feminine cāra, neuter cārum, comparative cārior, superlative cārissimus); first/second-declension adjective^[1] Inscriptions often spell it kārus;^[2][3] chārus is wrong.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *kāro- (“dear”), inherited from Proto-Indo-European *keh₂-ro- (“desired, desirable”), a ro-adjective from the root *keh₂- (“to desire, love”).^[4][1][5]

Cognate with Faliscan karai (“dear”), Latvian kārs (“lustful”), Gothic 𐌷𐍉𐍂𐍃 (hors, “adulterer”) (English whore), Old Irish carae (“friend”) and Sanskrit चारु (cā́ru, “dear”).^[4][2][1][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus,^[4] who uses it of prices: rogitō piscīs: indicant cārōs; agnīnam cāram, cāram būbulam, “I ask about fish: they say it's dear; lamb dear, beef dear”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Cārus means both “expensive, costly” and, of persons and things, “dear, beloved, valued”, often of mutual affection, as in the epitaph formula coniugī cārissimae, “to my dearest wife”.^[2][3][1] Its derivative cāritās likewise means “dearness” and “love”.^[4]

Church Latin glosses it “dear, beloved”.^[7] It is also a Roman cognomen, as of the poet Lucretius Carus and the emperor Carus.^[2][3]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus: agnīnam cāram, cāram būbulam.^[2][5]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid names the poet Carus.^[3][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. expensive, costly, dear.^[2][3][1]
2. Beloved, dear (of persons).^[2][3][1][7]
3. Dear, valued (of things).^[2][3][1]

Word family

• cāritās
• percārus

Related words

• amor
• English whore

References

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