elixus

Forms

ēlixus (feminine ēlixa, neuter ēlixum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- + *lixus (“fluid, flowing”), built like prōlixus;^[2][3][1] its first meaning must have been “boiling out”.^[2] The simple adjective is unattested, but its feminine survives as the noun lixa; it is probably formed with a suffix ⟨-so-⟩ from the root of liqueō (“to be liquid”), and de Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *wl(e)ikʷso- (“fluid, flowing”) and Proto-Indo-European *u̯l(e)ikʷ-s-.^[2] The OLD also compares ēlix.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus on,^[2][4] who uses it in plays on words in the Poenulus and the Mostellaria, meaning boiled.^[5]

Semantic evolution

It is used mainly of meat or other food that has been boiled, as in Varro, Horace, Pliny the Elder and Juvenal.^[3][5] By a transfer it came to mean “soaked, sodden”: Varro uses it of shoes, Martial of a bath attendant, and Persius of flesh gone soft after the bath.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it, punning on “boiled”.^[5][4]
• 116–27 BC – Varro uses it of boiled food and of soaked shoes.^[5][4]
• 65–8 BC – Horace uses it of boiled meat.^[5][4]
• 34–62 AD – Persius uses it of flesh softened by bathing.^[5][4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (of meat and other food) boiled, thoroughly cooked in water.^[3][5]
2. Soaked, sodden, wet through.^[5][1]

Word family

• ēlixō

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press