eruditus

Forms

ērudītus (feminine ērudīta, neuter ērudītum, comparative ērudītior, superlative ērudītissimus); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is the participle of ērudiō (“to instruct, educate”), used as an adjective.^[1][2][3] The verb is formed from ex- (“out of”), rudis (“rough, untrained”) and the verb suffix -iō, so “to bring out of the raw state”.^[1] De Vaan reports two competing origins for ⟨rudis⟩: a link with Old High German grioz (“sand, gravel”) and Lithuanian grúdas (“corn”), which needs a lost initial consonant, and the derivation from the word for “red” that most handbooks prefer, though nothing in its meaning points to red.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler gives Cicero as its first author;^[3] in the De finibus Epicurus is not polished in the arts whose masters are called learned.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Of people it is well instructed, accomplished or learned, as Cicero's idle and talkative Greek who is perhaps learned and trained, and his Scaevola, most learned in civil law; it takes an ablative or in, in Gellius an accusative, and in Tacitus an infinitive.^[1][2] Of faculties, words and actions it is learned or refined, as Cicero's more learned way of teaching, the learned dust of mathematicians, Columella's trained palates, and Tacitus' Petronius, a man of refined luxury.^[1][2]

Church Latin glosses it “informed, instructed”.^[5] Köbler finds it in the Bible and the councils.^[3]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero of learned men.^[2][3]
• 1st century AD – Columella of trained palates.^[1][3]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus of Petronius' refined luxury.^[1][3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Well instructed, accomplished, learned, erudite.^[1][2][5]
2. (of faculties, words, actions) Learned, skilled, refined.^[1][2]

Related words

• ērudiō
• ērudītiō
• rudis
• doctus
• English erudite

Usage notes

A noun ērudītus, of the fourth declension, meaning “instruction”, occurs once, in Tertullian.^[2][6]

References

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