- Confidence
- Established
- Formation
- Derivation
- First attested
- Ovid
- Ultimate origin
- Latin (garrulus)
Etymology tree
Forms
garrulitās f (genitive garrulitātis); third declension[1]
Etymology
It is from Latin garrulus (“talkative”) + -tās, from garriō “to chatter”.[2][1][3] De Vaan reconstructs ⟨garriō⟩ as perhaps Proto-Italic ⟨*gārje/o-⟩, Proto-Indo-European *ǵ(e)h₂r-ye/o- (“to shout”), cognate with Old Irish gairid (“calls”).[4]
Earliest recorded meaning
Köbler's earliest source is Ovid, and Gaffiot cites his Metamorphoses for the chattering of magpies.[5][6] Köbler dates Ovid 43 BC–18 AD.[5]
Semantic evolution
It meant chattering, babbling, talkativeness, loquacity, of birds such as the magpie in Ovid and the crow in Pliny, and of people, and Lewis & Short note that it is not found in Cicero.[2][7][6]
Medieval Latin used it for insolent language, and British Medieval Latin for foolish chatter and merriment.[8][9]
Timeline
Meanings
Noun
Related words
References
- ^ a b 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
- ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
- ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
- ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
- ^ a b c d Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
- ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
- ^ Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
Cite this entry
“Garrulitas.” Etymologically, 17 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/la/garrulitas. Accessed 17 Oct. 2026.
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