Etymologically
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exilium

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ɛkˈsɪ.li.ũː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [eɡˈziː.li.um][1]

Forms

exilium n (genitive exiliī or exilī); second declension[1] It is also spelled exsilium.[2][1] Seneca has the ablative plural exilis.[2]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin exul (“exile, banished person”) + -ium.[2][3] The OLD explains exul as ex- with a root ⟨*ul-⟩ “go” also found in ambulō, rather than from solum (“ground”), as the ancients thought.[2] Cassiodorus explained it as ⟨exsolium⟩, going out of one's land, an etymology the TLL calls false.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus: tē in exilium īre hinc oportet, “you must go from here into exile”.[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Exilium is banishment and the state of an exile, chiefly in phrases such as in exilium īre and in exilium ēicere (Cicero).[2] It is also the place of exile, and in the plural the exiles themselves.[2][5]

Church Latin glosses it “exile, banishment”.[6] In medieval Latin it also meant imprisonment and the laying waste of land, destruction.[7]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus: tē in exilium īre hinc oportet.[2][4]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of driving a citizen into exile.[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. banishment, exile.[2][6]
  2. A place of exile.[2]
  3. (Medieval Latin) Imprisonment.[7]
  4. (Medieval Latin) Devastation, ruin.[7]

Word family

  • exilicus

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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 c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  5. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  7. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill