Etymologically
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catervatim

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Forms

catervātim (not comparable)[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin caterva (“band, troop”) + -ātim (“adverbial suffix”).[1][2] De Vaan follows Rix in reconstructing Proto-Italic *kates-wā- for the noun, and finds no Indo-European root to which it can safely be linked.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Lucretius,[2][3] who uses it of those given over to disease and death in large numbers.[4]

Semantic evolution

It meant both “in large numbers”, as in Lucretius and Virgil, and “in bands or groups”, usually disorderly ones: Sallust describes an enemy attacking not in battle line but in bands, and the Bellum Africum soldiers deserting in groups.[4] Columella and Pliny the Elder applied it to animals, pigs lying together and starlings flying in flocks, and Columella also to vines planted mixed together.[4][5]

Medieval writers used it of people, animals such as bees, and things moving in a band;[6] Ecclesiastical Latin glosses it “in troops, in groups”.[7]

Timeline

  • 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it of those dying in large numbers.[4][3]
  • 86–34 BC – Sallust describes an attack in disorderly bands.[4][3]
  • 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it in the Georgics.[4][3]
  • 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder notes that starlings fly in flocks.[4][3]
  • 639–709 AD – Aldhelm uses it of bands of people and of bees.[6][3]

Meanings

Adverb

  1. In bands, troops or groups, usually disorderly; of animals, in herds or flocks.[4][5]
  2. In large numbers.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  3. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
  7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson