fatifer
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Pronunciation
Forms
fātifer (feminine fātifera, neuter fātiferum); first/second-declension adjective (nominative masculine singular in -er)[1]
Etymology
It is from Latin fātum (“fate”) + -fer (“bearing”).[2][3][1][4]
Earliest recorded meaning
Virgil uses it in the Aeneid of a sword and of a bow: sonat ūnā fātifer arcus, “at the same moment the deadly bow twangs”.[5][3][4]
Semantic evolution
A poetic word,[5] it meant bringing fate or death, deadly.[2] After Virgil, Ovid uses it of iron and of Mars, and Silius Italicus of a right hand.[3][5]
Timeline
- 70–19 BC – Virgil applies it to a sword and a bow.[3][4]
- 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it in the Amores and the Metamorphoses.[3][5][4]
- 25–101 AD – Silius Italicus uses it.[3][4]
Meanings
Adjective
Usage notes
Servius explains it with lētifer, which one manuscript reads for it in the Aeneid, and the glossaries with mortifer.[3]
References
- ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ a b c d e f g Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
- ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
- ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press