Etymologically
Log in

fastidiosus

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 20 October 2026 at 19:49. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • Classical: [fas.tiː.diˈoː.sʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [fas.ti.diˈɔː.s̬us][1]

Forms

fastīdiōsus (feminine fastīdiōsa, neuter fastīdiōsum); first/second-declension adjective[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin fastīdium (“disdain, aversion”) + -ōsus.[2][3][1][4] De Vaan explains that noun as a compound of fastus2 (“haughtiness”) and the root of taedet (“it wearies”), shortened by haplology.[4][5] He adds that the only reasonable connection for that noun is with a word for “top”, which would need a shift of meaning from “top” to “haughtiness”.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus on,[4][6] meaning “hard to please”: in the Miles gloriosus a speaker is worried because someone is so particular.[2]

Semantic evolution

It described people who feel disgust or aversion: Lucilius uses it of being squeamish about food, and Varro of cows that turn fussy.[2][3] More often it meant hard to satisfy, exacting, or, with a genitive, discontented with something; the Rhetorica ad Herennium calls the sense of hearing the most fastidious.[2][3] Cicero uses it of haughty, disdainful minds that cannot bear the least authority.[2]

Horace has it in the active sense of something wearisome or nauseating.[2] In Ecclesiastical Latin it means fastidious or disdainful.[7] English fastidious, first “full of pride”, comes from it,[5] and it survives in fastidioso and as the learned fastidieux.[1]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of a person hard to please.[2][6]
  • c. 180–102 BC – Lucilius uses it of squeamishness about food.[2][6]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of haughty minds.[2][6]
  • 65–8 BC – Horace uses it of something nauseating.[2][6]
  • mid-15th century – English borrows it as fastidious.[5]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Squeamish, showing aversion to food.[2][3]
  2. Hard to satisfy, exacting, particular;[2][3] (with genitive) not content with.[2]
  3. Haughty, disdainful.[2][3]
  4. Wearisome, nauseating.[2][1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ 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
  5. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson