conchyliatus

Forms

conchȳliātus (feminine conchȳliāta, neuter conchȳliātum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin conchȳlium (“shellfish; purple dye”) + -ātus,^[2][3][4] and that noun is from Ancient Greek κογχύλιον (konkhúlion, “small mussel”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler and Georges date it from Plautus,^[4][5] meaning dyed with purple.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Cicero uses it of purple coverlets,^[6][3] Petronius of purple stuffing and of wool,^[3] Pliny the Elder of purple clothes,^[6] and Suetonius in his life of Caesar.^[6] Seneca uses the masculine plural as a noun for people dressed in purple, leaving them behind to talk with a half-naked man.^[6][5]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it.^[4][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of purple coverlets.^[6][4]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it of people dressed in purple.^[6][4]
• c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius uses it in his life of Caesar.^[6][4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Dyed purple, purple-coloured.^[2][6]
2. (masculine as a noun) A person dressed in purple.^[2][5]

Related words

• conchȳlium

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press