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dolosus

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Etymology and origin of the Latin word dolosus

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
c. 250–184 BC, Plautus
Ultimate origin
Proto-Italic (*dolo-)
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin dolus
Latin sedulus
Latin sedulitas
Latin dolosus
Latin subdolus

Pronunciation

  • Classical: [dɔˈɫoː.sʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [doˈlɔː.s̬us][1]

Forms

dolōsus (feminine dolōsa, neuter dolōsum, adverb dolōsē); first/second-declension adjective[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin dolus (“trick, deceit”) + -ōsus.[2][3][1] De Vaan traces dolus to Proto-Italic *dolo- (“trick”);[4] Pokorny thought it borrowed from Ancient Greek δόλος (dólos, “bait, trick”), but in view of doleō (“to feel pain”) and dolor (“pain”) he does not rule out an inherited Proto-Indo-European *dolh₁-o- (“pain”).[4] Isidore explains the word as “insidious or malicious”, from deceiving.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus,[4] in whom someone plans to get hold of a crafty lute-girl, aliquam dolosam fidicinam.[2]

Semantic evolution

It means given to trickery, artful, sly or deceitful;[2][5] Lewis & Short find it rare and mostly poetic.[2][5] Plautus has a crafty fellow-slave, Horace a scheming woman, Ovid a deceitful race and Phaedrus the fox.[5] Of conduct, Cicero speaks of a king driven from his kingdom by treacherous plans.[2] Of things it is treacherous: Horace has fires lying under deceptive ash.[2] Church Latin has it as false, deceitful.[6]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, of a crafty lute-girl.[2][4][7]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero, of treacherous plans.[2][7]
  • 65–8 BC – Horace, of deceptive ash.[2][7]
  • c. 15 BC–c. 50 AD – Phaedrus, of the fox.[5][7]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Crafty, cunning, sly, deceitful.[2][5][1]
  2. Of things, treacherous, deceptive.[2]

Word family

  • dolōsitās

Usage notes

The adverb dolōsē “craftily” is in Plautus, Lucilius and Cicero.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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
  3. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ a b c d 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 c d e 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. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
Cite this entry

“Dolosus.” Etymologically, 20 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/la/dolosus. Accessed 20 Oct. 2026.

Last edited on . ·