Etymologically
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duodeviginti

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [du.ɔ.deː.wiːˈɡɪn.tiː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [du.o.de.viˈd͡ʒin.ti][1]

Forms

duodēvīgintī (indeclinable)[1]

Etymology

It is a compound of duo (“two”), dē (“from”) and vīgintī (“twenty”),[2][1][3] that is, “two from twenty”.[1] Paulus' epitome of Festus says that the Romans took this way of counting from the Greeks.[4]

The word for twenty goes back to Proto-Italic *wīkentī and Proto-Indo-European *dui-dḱmt-ih1 (“twenty”), originally a dual form.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus on,[5][3] meaning “eighteen”, in the Poenulus.[6]

Semantic evolution

Cicero and Caesar use it,[6] and Eutropius splits it as duobus dē vīgintī.[6][4] Eighteen is also expressed by decem et octo, in Livy, Vitruvius, Pliny and many later prose writers, and in inscriptions; the forms decem octo and octo et decem also occur.[4] In Ecclesiastical Latin it is still the word for eighteen.[7]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it in the Poenulus.[6][3]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it.[6][3]
  • c. 50 BC – Caesar uses it in the Gallic War.[6][3]
  • c. 370 AD – Eutropius writes it as duobus dē vīgintī.[6][4][3]

Meanings

Numeral

  1. Eighteen.[2][6]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  4. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  5. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson