Etymologically
Log in

coleus

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 23 October 2026 at 12:28. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈkoː.ɫe.ʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈkɔː.le.us][1]

Forms

cōleus m (genitive cōleī); second declension[1] Glossaries also write it culeus.[2]

Etymology

The TLL thinks the origin hard to settle, because the harmless sense of the ⟨colei⟩ of Lanuvium in Cicero's letter is unknown.[2] Some equate it with culleus (“leather bag”) (also culeus),[2][3][4][5] others with caulis (“stalk”) in an obscene sense;[2] Wiktionary thinks it most likely from cōlō2 (“to strain”), akin to cōlum (“sieve”).[1]

Walde compared Old High German hodo (“testicle”), or else Old Russian words.[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler and the TLL have it first in the mimes of Laberius.[5][2] Cicero, in a letter on obscene words, puns on the “colei” of Lanuvium.[2][3]

Semantic evolution

It was a vulgar word for the testicles or scrotum, found in the Priapea and Martial.[3][4] In Petronius a freedman complains that things would be better sī cōleōs habērēmus “if we had balls”, that is, any courage.[3][1]

It survives in Asturian coyu.[1]

Timeline

  • 106–43 BC – Laberius uses it in a mime.[2][5]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero puns on it in a letter.[2][5]
  • before 66 AD – Petronius uses it of courage.[3][5]
  • 40–102/103 AD – Martial uses it.[3][5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (vulgar) A testicle; in the plural, the scrotum.[3][4][1]
  2. (figurative, plural) Courage, manliness.[3][1]

Word family

  • cōleātus
  • cōleō

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  4. ^ a b c Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
  5. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  6. ^ Walde, Alois (1906), Lateinisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter