Etymologically
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gravedo

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Forms

gravēdō f (genitive gravēdinis); third declension[1] The spelling gravīdō also occurs, in painted inscriptions at Pompeii and in some manuscripts.[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin gravis (“heavy”) + -ēdō.[2][1][4] The TLL compares gravēscō (“to grow heavy”).[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in Plautus' Asinaria, where she is to pretend that a cold is running from her nose (simulet quasi gravedo profluat).[2][4]

Semantic evolution

In Cicero's letters, Catullus and Celsus it is a cold in the head or catarrh.[5][6] Pliny the Elder uses it more generally of a heavy, oppressive feeling, such as heaviness of the head after drinking.[2][5] Nemesianus applies it to pregnancy,[5][6] and Augustine uses it figuratively.[6]

In Medieval Latin it meant weight or heaviness, and then an oppressive levy or a wrong done to someone.[7]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of a running cold.[2][4]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero mentions a cold in his letters to Atticus.[5][6][4]
  • 14–37 AD – Celsus treats it as a medical complaint, catarrh.[6][4]
  • 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of heaviness in the head.[2][4]
  • 354–430 AD – Augustine uses it figuratively.[6][4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (medicine) A cold in the head, catarrh.[2][5]
  2. A heavy, oppressive feeling, heaviness.[2][6]
  3. Pregnancy.[5][6]
  4. (Medieval Latin) An oppressive levy; a wrong, oppression.[7]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  5. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
  7. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill