dimidius

Forms

dīmidius (feminine dīmidia, neuter dīmidium); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin dis- + medius (“middle”), from a form ⟨*dis-medius⟩.^[2][3] The Thesaurus calls the formation strange, unless the adjective was shortened from dīmidiātus (“halved”).^[4] The adjective medius goes back to Proto-Italic *meþios and Proto-Indo-European *médʰyos (“middle”).^[2] Cognate with Oscan mefiaí (“in the middle”), Sanskrit मध्य (mádhya-, “middle”) and Ancient Greek μέσος (mésos, “middle”).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus;^[2] until the Augustan age it is used only with pars, as in Plautus' “he subdued half the nations”.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Its sense is “half”: dimidia pars is the half, and parte dimidia auctus is “twice as large”; later it is used freely of other nouns, as Vitruvius' moon that shines half lit.^[3][5] In a looser sense it means incomplete or mutilated, as Martial's half horses.^[3] Its neuter dīmidium became the usual noun for “a half”.^[1][6]

The Appendix Probi censures the form ⟨demidius⟩.^[7][4] Etymonline traces English demi- through Old French demi to a Late Latin dimedius, from this adjective.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of half the nations.^[5][2][9]
• c. 84–c. 25 BC – Vitruvius of the half-lit moon.^[3][9]
• 40–102/103 AD – Martial of mutilated statues of horses.^[3][9]
• mid-14th century – Its descendant appears in English as the prefix demi-.^[8]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Half;^[3][5][1] dimidia pars, the half;^[3][5][1] parte dimidia auctus, twice as large.^[3][5][1]
2. Incomplete, mutilated, “half”.^[3]

Word family

• dīmidia
• dimidietas
• dīmidiō
• dīmidium
• subdimidius
• superdimidius

Related words

• medius
• English demi-

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ Appendix Probi, a late antique list of correct and censured Latin word forms ("calida non calda"); ed. H. Keil, Grammatici Latini IV, Leipzig 1864, 197–199.
8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de