Etymologically
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debilis

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈdeː.bɪ.lɪs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈdɛː.bi.lis][1]

Forms

dēbilis (neuter dēbile, comparative dēbilior, superlative dēbilissimus); third-declension two-termination adjective[1] Ennius has a shortened nominative dēbil.[2][3]

Etymology

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *dē-belis (“without strength”), a compound of the type of inermis (“unarmed”), made from dē- and a lost noun going back to Proto-Indo-European *bel-o- (“strength, power”); the isolation of the word in Latin suggests it is old.[2][3][4] Cognate with Sanskrit बल (bála-, “strength”) and Ancient Greek βελτίων (beltíōn, “better”).[2][3] Older explanations take it from ⟨de-habilis⟩, from habilis (“manageable”), or connect it with dēbeō (“to owe”).[5][6][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus,[2] whose Mercator has a son clever enough in his own interest but “lame, blind, crippled” when sent on an errand.[3]

Semantic evolution

It means lacking bodily strength, weak, disabled or crippled, of people and animals, and of things impaired, as Lucretius' things that languish with age.[3][5] In a wider sense it is feeble or ineffective, as Accius' “without the mind, the soul is weak”.[3] The verb dēbilitō “to weaken” was formed from it.[2]

Church Latin glosses it “maimed, feeble, weak, infirm”; in medieval texts it also means of humble rank.[7][8]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a crippled man.[3][2][6]
  • 204–169 BC – Ennius has the form dēbil.[2][6]
  • 170–c. 90 BC – Accius of a feeble soul.[3][6]
  • 96–55 BC – Lucretius of things weakened by age.[3][6]
  • Middle Ages – Of persons of humble condition.[8]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Weak, disabled, crippled; of things, impaired.[3][5][1]
  2. Feeble, ineffective.[3][1]
  3. (Medieval Latin) Of humble condition.[8]

Word family

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g 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 g h i j k Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  5. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  8. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill