clivosus

Forms

clīvōsus (feminine clīvōsa, neuter clīvōsum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin clīvus (“slope, hill”) + -ōsus.^[2][3][1] De Vaan traces clīvus to Proto-Indo-European *ḱloi-uo- (“slope, hill”) or *ḱlei-u̯o- (“sloping”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in Virgil's Georgics, of a sloping path and of hilly farmland.^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

L&S notes that the word is poetic or belongs to post-Augustan prose.^[5] It described hilly or steep ground, such as Ovid's Olympus and Ida, and Columella sets it against level land.^[5] It could also be used figuratively, “arduous”.^[5][1] Glossaries render it by words for “uneven” and “sloping”.^[3]

Timeline

• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of a path and of fields in the Georgics.^[5][6]
• 43 BC–AD 18 – Ovid uses it of mountains.^[5][6]
• 1st century AD – Columella opposes it to level ground.^[5][6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Hilly, steep, full of slopes.^[2][5]
2. (figurative) Arduous, difficult.^[5][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b 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 f g h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de