desertus

Forms

dēsertus (feminine dēserta, neuter dēsertum, comparative dēsertior, superlative dēsertissimus); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is the past participle of dēserō (“to abandon”), used as an adjective.^[1][2][3] The verb is formed from dē- (“away from”) and serō (“to join, link”), which de Vaan derives from Proto-Italic *sere- and Proto-Indo-European *ser- (“to thread, tie together”), cognate with Ancient Greek εἴρω (eírō, “to fasten together”).^[4][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it from Cato and Terence on;^[5] Terence's Phormio has a woman left “an old woman, deserted, needy, unknown”.^[1][3]

Semantic evolution

It is empty of people, deserted or uninhabited, as the epitaph of Plautus, “Comedy mourns, the stage is deserted”, and the neuter plural is the wilderness, as Lucretius' flocks holding “tilled and wild land”.^[1] Of persons it is left alone or forsaken, as in Terence, and of circumstances lonely or unattended, as Cicero's “no one's return was ever lonelier”.^[1]

Church Latin glosses it “deserted, desolate, arid”.^[6]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato.^[5][3]
• 190–159 BC – Terence of a forsaken woman.^[1][3]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius of the wilderness.^[1][3]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of a lonely return.^[1][3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Deserted, uninhabited;^[1][2][6] (neuter plural as noun) unfrequented places, a wilderness.^[1][2][6]
2. (of persons) Forsaken, left alone, lonely.^[1]
3. (Ecclesiastical Latin) Desolate, arid.^[6]

Related words

• dēserō
• dēsertor
• serō
• sōlitūdō

Usage notes

Döderlein distinguishes dēserere from relinquere: relinquere is to leave behind what one is merely near, while dēserere and omittere are to abandon what one has an inner or moral bond with.^[7]

References

1. ^ 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
2. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
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 Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ a b c d Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper