flatus

Forms

flātus m (genitive flātūs); fourth declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin flō (“to blow”) + -tus, a verbal noun of the fourth declension.^[2][3][1] De Vaan tentatively traces flō to Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₁- (“to blow”), perhaps related to fleō (“to weep”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler's first source is Varro;^[5] Cicero writes in a letter that the south wind blowing hard against him carried him back to Regium.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is the blowing of the wind, a blast or breeze, as in Catullus' villa exposed to the blasts of the south wind.^[2] Of people it is breathing or a breath, especially a laboured one, a breath blown to kindle a fire, and in Horace the sound of a pipe.^[2][6] Vitruvius uses it of a blast from bellows and of vapours rising from the ground, and Suetonius of wind from the bowels: Claudius planned an edict allowing it at dinner.^[2] Figuratively it is pride or vainglory, as in Seneca.^[2]

Church Latin glosses it “breath, blowing, blast”,^[7] and in medieval texts it is the breath of life, the soul.^[8]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro.^[5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of a strong wind.^[2][5]
• 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus of the blasts of the south wind.^[2][5]
• c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius of wind from the bowels.^[2][5]
• Middle Ages – Of the breath of life.^[8]
• 1660s – Borrowed into English as flatus “wind in the bowels”.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A blowing of the wind, a blast, breeze.^[2][6][1]
2. Breathing, a breath; a note blown on a pipe.^[2][6][1]
3. A current of air; an exhalation, vapour; wind from the bowels, flatulence.^[2][1]
4. Pride, vainglory.^[2][6]
5. (Medieval Latin) The breath of life, the soul.^[8]

Word family

• flātō

Related words

• flō
• afflātus
• English flatus

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 m Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
9. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com