gracilis

Forms

gracilis (neuter gracile, comparative gracilior, superlative gracillimus, adverb graciliter); third-declension two-termination adjective^[1] Early Latin also has a second-declension form gracilus, -a, -um (Terence's gracilae, Lucilius).^[2][3][4]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[4][5] The adjective is related to cracēns (“slender”), which survives only in Paulus' abridgement of Festus and may be the original form, with its first consonant later changed to /g/.^[4][2] A preform ⟨*krakilis⟩ would continue Proto-Indo-European *kr̥ḱ- and be cognate with Sanskrit कृश (kṛśá-, “lean, meagre”), Avestan kərəsa- (“lean”), Old Norse horr (“leanness”) and Lithuanian karšė́ti (“to grow old”), but de Vaan objects that ⟨*kr̥ḱ-i-⟩ should have given Latin ⟨corci-⟩ and that the change of the consonant is unexplained.^[4] He also mentions a possible Umbrian cognate, an epithet of the moon meaning “waning”.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Terence,^[4] whose Eunuchus tells of mothers who make their daughters keep their shoulders down so that they stay slim.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It means slender, slight or thin, of people, animals and limbs, in a good or a bad sense, and of things fine or narrow, as Virgil's basket woven of slender marsh-mallow and Ovid's ants on a narrow path.^[2] Of soil and substances it is thin or light, and of crops scanty, as in Pliny the Younger's “a meagre vintage”.^[2] Of poetry it is modest or unambitious, and of style plain and unadorned, as in Quintilian's third kind of style between the plain and the forceful.^[2][3]

Leumann holds that the derivative gracilentus was made as the opposite of corpulentus.^[4] Church Latin glosses it “slender, graceful”.^[6]

Timeline

• 190–159 BC – Terence of slim girls.^[2][4][7]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of a slender basket.^[2][7]
• c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian of the plain style.^[2][7]
• 1620s – Borrowed into English as gracile.^[8]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Slender, slim, thin; lean.^[2][3][1]
2. Fine, slight; narrow.^[2][3]
3. Thin, light; scanty, meagre.^[2][3][1]
4. Of poetry, modest; of style, simple, plain, unadorned.^[2][3][1]

Word family

• gracilentus
• gracilesco
• gracilipēs
• gracilitās
• gracilitūdō
• pergracilis
• praegracilis

Related words

• gracilēns
• graciliter
• English gracile

Usage notes

Etymonline notes that English gracile has nothing to do with grace, though it is often taken to.^[8]

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 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 e f g h de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com