Etymologically
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carus

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Pronunciation

  • IPA (Classical): [ˈkaː.rʊs][1]
  • IPA (Ecclesiastical): [ˈkaː.rus][1]

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

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