deformitas

Forms

dēfōrmitās f (genitive dēfōrmitātis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin dēfōrmis (“misshapen, ugly”) + -tās.^[2][1][3] dēfōrmis is formed from fōrma (“shape, beauty”), whose origin de Vaan finds unclear: it may go back to *morma, and it and Ancient Greek μορφή (morphḗ, “form, shape”) may have been borrowed from a third language, or the Greek word may have reached Latin through Etruscan.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL records it from Cicero on, who notes that ugliness offers good material for jokes.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

It is ugliness or unsightliness, and disfigurement, as when Livy says that a man was still recognised in all his disfigurement.^[2] Cicero sets the deformity of the body against the far worse foulness of the mind.^[5] Apuleius uses it of walls in disrepair, and Seneca of shapelessness.^[2] Morally it is disgrace or degradation, and in style a lack of taste, an impropriety.^[2] The TLL notes that the poets, Caesar and Sallust do not use it, and records the plural in Gellius and Augustine.^[3] Glossaries explain it with flāgitium and turpitūdō.^[3]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero of ugliness and of disgrace.^[2][3][6]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of a disfigured man.^[2][6]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius of walls in disrepair.^[2][6]
• early 15th century – English deformity is borrowed through Old French.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. Ugliness, unsightliness, deformity.^[2][5][1]
2. Disfigurement; of things, defacement, disrepair.^[2][1]
3. Disgrace, degradation, baseness.^[2][1]
4. Lack of good taste, inelegance, impropriety.^[2]
5. Lack of shape, shapelessness.^[2]

Related words

• dēfōrmātiō
• dēfōrmis
• dēfōrmiter
• dēfōrmō

References

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