emendatus

Forms

ēmendātus (feminine ēmendāta, neuter ēmendātum); comparative ēmendātior, superlative ēmendātissimus; first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is the perfect participle from Latin ēmendō (“to correct, free from faults”), used as an adjective.^[1][2][3] That verb is made from ē- and mendum (“fault, blemish”), for which de Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *m(e)ndo-, perhaps cognate with Old Irish mennar (“blemish”); any deeper root is only a theoretical possibility.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero has it in the Laelius of faultless character, in the Brutus of correct, pure Latin speech, and in the Academica of works corrected and perfected.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

It means without flaw, correct or perfect, said of speech and style (Cicero, Quintilian), works of art and books (Pliny the Elder, Quintilian), and even water.^[2] Of people and their conduct it means blameless, as in Horace's man happy to be called wise and faultless, the elder Seneca, Apuleius and Ulpian.^[1][2] It has a comparative and superlative, and the adverb ēmendātē, faultlessly, is used of speaking and writing.^[1][2] The TLL also records a rare fourth-declension noun meaning correction, in a work ascribed to Rufinus.^[5]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of faultless character and correct speech.^[2][3]
• 65–8 BC – Horace, of a blameless man.^[1][2][3]
• c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian, of correct style.^[2][3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Without flaw or blemish, correct, perfect, faultless (of speech, writing, works).^[1][2][6]
2. Morally blameless, of good character.^[1][2]

Related words

• ēmendō
• mendum
• ēmendātiō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
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. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org