Etymologically
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exanimis

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ɛkˈsa.nɪ.mɪs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [eɡˈzaː.ni.mis][1]

Forms

exanimis (neuter exanime); third-declension two-termination adjective[1] A second-declension exanimus is also used, mostly in the plural.[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- + anima (“breath, life”) + -is, “without breath”.[2][4][1] De Vaan traces anima and animus to Proto-Italic *anamo- (“breath, spirit”) and Proto-Indo-European *h₂enh₁-mo- (“breath”).[5] Cognate with Oscan anamúm (“breath, courage”), Old Irish anim (“soul”) and Ancient Greek ἄνεμος (ánemos, “wind”).[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Lucretius,[5] who argues that nothing can be created that is not living or with a lifeless body.[2]

Semantic evolution

It means deprived of life, dead, as Virgil's ox that falls lifeless to the ground, and inanimate, as a lifeless object in the ear in Celsus.[2] Lewis & Short note that it is mostly post-Augustan and absent from Cicero and Caesar.[3] It also means half dead or unconscious, as Pliny's bathers carried out swooning, and breathless or exhausted.[2] By transfer it means faint with fear, petrified, as in Virgil's “she heard it, frightened out of her wits”.[2][3] Lactantius uses the neuter plural for lifeless things.[3]

Timeline

  • 96–55 BC – Lucretius of a lifeless body.[2][5][6]
  • 70–19 BC – Virgil of a dead ox and of one faint with fear.[2][6]
  • 65–8 BC – Horace uses it of terror.[3][6]
  • 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder of bathers carried out unconscious.[2][6]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Deprived of life, dead; inanimate, lifeless.[2][3][1]
  2. Half dead, unconscious, swooning; breathless, exhausted.[2][1]
  3. Faint with fear, terrified.[2][3][1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  5. ^ 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
  6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de