deus

Pronunciation

• IPA (Classical): [ˈde.ʊs]^[1]
• IPA (Ecclesiastical): [ˈdɛː.us]^[1]

Forms

deus m (genitive deī, feminine dea); irregular, second declension^[1] The nominative plural is dī, deī or diī, the genitive plural deōrum or deum, the dative and ablative dīs, deīs or, in inscriptions, dibus; the vocative singular is deus, and Old Latin had deivos.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *deiwos, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *deywós (“god, god of the bright sky”), an o-stem derivative of Proto-Indo-European *dyew- (“sky, daylight”), the root of diēs and Iuppiter.^[4][1][5] Cognate with Venetic deivos, Oscan deívaí and Old Irish día “god”, with Sanskrit देव (devá-, “god”) and Avestan daēuua- (“god, demon”), with Old Prussian deywis, Lithuanian diẽvas and Latvian dìevs “god”, and with the Germanic war-god's name Old Norse Týr, Old English Tīw and Old High German Zīo.^[4][2][1]

De Vaan explains the two Latin stems from one paradigm: Italic *deiw- became *dēw-, and *w was then lost before back vowels but kept before front vowels, where the long vowel was raised (genitive *dīwī, plural *dīwīs), giving deum and deō but dīs; the two reflexes were later split in meaning, so that deus is the god and dīvus “divine”.^[4][1] Varro derived the word from Diovis and Diespiter, “father day”.^[6] Georges compares Ancient Greek θεός (theós, “god”), which Lewis and Short expressly exclude.^[7][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Very Old Latin Duenos inscription has deivos, and inscriptions from Pisaurum of the 3rd century BC deiva;^[4][8] Plautus says that the one whom the gods love dies young.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It was a god of the Roman pantheon, in collective titles (dī penates, dī manes) and in everyday exclamations (di te ament, si dis placet).^[2] It was applied in hyperbole to people (Terence's “I am a god if this is so”, Caecilius' “man is a god to man”), to deified emperors, and to the statue of a god, as in Cicero's charge that Verres left the Sicilians no god.^[2][3] Philosophers used it for the divine essence or supreme being, as when Cicero reports the view that all is one and that one is god.^[2]

Christian writers made it the name of the one God and of the persons of the Trinity, and a medieval etymology explained it from diligere, “because he loves all he has created”.^[9][10] Every Romance language keeps it, from Sardinian deu and Romanian zău to Italian dio, French dieu, Spanish dios and Portuguese deus,^[11][1] and French adieu passed into German as ade.^[8]

Timeline

• 7th–3rd century BC – The Duenos inscription has deivos.^[4][8]
• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of the gods.^[2][8]
• 234–149 BC – Cato's prayer runs si deus, si dea es, “whether you are god or goddess”.^[2][8]
• 230/220–168 BC – Caecilius writes that man is a god to man.^[2][8]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of statues of gods and of the supreme being.^[2][8]
• c. 20 BC–30 AD – Velleius says Caesar made his father a god.^[2][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A god, a deity, and in the plural the gods, in collective titles and exclamations.^[2][3]
2. (hyperbolic) A person of godlike achievement or happiness; a deified emperor.^[2]
3. The statue or image of a god.^[2]
4. (philosophy) The divine essence, the supreme being.^[2]
5. (Christian Latin) God; a person of the Trinity.^[9][10]

Word family

• dea
• deicīda
• deifer
• deificō
• deificus
• deipara
• deisatus
• deitās
• dīvus
• sēmideus

Related words

• diēs
• diū
• Iūpiter
• English deity
• English deism
• English adieu

Usage notes

Döderlein notes that nūmen is any divine being in the wide sense and, in the narrow sense, a kind of deus, while dīvus is the older word.^[12] The irregular plural forms are a result of the sound changes described in the Etymology.^[4]

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 n o Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ 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
5. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
6. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
9. ^ a b Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
10. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
11. ^ Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom
12. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper