Etymologically
Log in

exiguitas

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 20 October 2026 at 14:59. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ɛk.sɪˈɡu.ɪ.taːs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [eɡ.ziˈɡuː.i.tas][1]

Forms

exiguitās f (genitive exiguitātis); third declension[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin exiguus (“scanty, small”) + -tās.[2][1][3] De Vaan holds that exiguus was derived from exigō, a compound of agō (“to drive”),[4] which he traces to Proto-Italic *ag-e/o- and Proto-Indo-European *h₂eǵ-e/o- (“to drive, lead”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it from Varro and Cicero on;[3][5] Varro writes of a shortage of milk (propter exiguitatem lactis).[2]

Semantic evolution

It means smallness of size, as when Cicero writes that some pleasures are obscured by their smallness, or in Caesar, where the small size of a camp shows how few the soldiers are.[2][6] More often it is scantiness or shortage of amount or number: of troops, gifts, food, the treasury's funds or crops in Caesar, Caelius, Quintilian, Columella, Suetonius and the jurists.[2][6] Caesar and Livy use it of shortness of time.[6] In Ecclesiastical Latin it means scarcity, smallness or shortness,[7] and Köbler lists medieval uses in charters and church councils.[5]

Timeline

  • 116–27 BC – Varro uses it of a shortage of milk.[2][5]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of smallness.[2][5]
  • c. 50 BC – Caesar uses it of a small camp and of shortness of time.[6][5]
  • c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius uses it of the poverty of the treasury.[6][5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Smallness of size; littleness.[2][6]
  2. Scantiness of amount or number, shortage, scarcity.[2][6]
  3. Shortness of time.[6][7]

References

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