frustratus

Forms

frūstrātus m (genitive frūstrātūs); fourth declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin frūstror (“to deceive, frustrate”) + -tus³.^[2][3][4] The verb is formed from frūstrā (“in vain”), which de Vaan takes as the plural of an unattested *frūstrum from *fraud-tro-, built on fraus (“deceit”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found only in Plautus,^[5] in the Menaechmi: a woman tells a man who keeps fooling her to find another woman to make sport of (“aliam posthac invenito quam habeas frustratui”).^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

The noun stayed rare: after Plautus, Symmachus uses it in a letter,^[4] and Nonius Marcellus has it of mime actors who are a laughing-stock to everyone.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses the dative frustratui in the Menaechmi.^[3][4][6]
• c. 340–402 – Symmachus uses it in a letter.^[4][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. Deception, delusion;^[2][3][4] habere aliquem frustratui, to make a fool of someone.^[2][3][4]

Usage notes

The form is also the perfect participle of frūstror, which was used as an adjective meaning “vain, useless” from Manilius on.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de