Etymologically
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effeminatus

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Forms

effēminātus (feminine effēmināta, neuter effēminātum; comparative effēminātior, superlative effēminātissimus); first/second-declension adjective[1][2]

Etymology

Used as an adjective, it is the perfect passive participle from Latin effēminō (“to unman, make womanish”).[1][3] That verb is made from ex- and fēmina (“woman”),[1] which de Vaan explains as an old participle of Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to suckle”), "the one nursing".[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Cicero,[5] who in the Tusculan Disputations calls an opinion womanish and light.[1]

Semantic evolution

Of persons it means imitating a woman in looks or behaviour, effeminate;[1] of character and actions it means unworthy of a man, womanish, as in Cicero.[1] Quintilian transfers it to style, preferring a rough arrangement of words to an effeminate one.[1] The TLL records the comparative from Valerius Maximus on and the superlative from Quintus Cicero, Seneca and Apuleius.[2] Stelten gives "effeminate" for Church Latin.[6]

Timeline

  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of a womanish opinion.[1][5]
  • 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca in the superlative.[2]
  • c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian of an effeminate style.[1]
  • c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius in the superlative.[2]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. (of persons) Effeminate, imitating a woman in appearance or behaviour.[1][6]
  2. (of character, actions) Unmanly, womanish.[1]
  3. (of style) Effeminate, soft.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  2. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  3. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson