habitator

Forms

habitātor m (genitive habitātōris, feminine habitātrīx); third declension^[1] The feminine is habitātrīx.^[1] An inscription spells it abitator.^[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin habitō + -tor,^[3][1][2] the agent noun of habitāre (“to dwell”), which is a frequentative of habeō (“to have, hold”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero has it first: in a letter to his brother Quintus he reports that the Lamiae have rented Quintus' house as tenants, and in On the Nature of the Gods he uses it of an inhabitant of the heavenly “house” of the world.^[3][2][5]

Semantic evolution

Its two classical uses were the occupant or tenant of a house, often opposed to the owner in the jurists, and the inhabitant of a town or country, near in meaning to incola.^[3][2] Juvenal calls Diogenes the great dweller in a jar.^[2] Leo the Great uses it of monks,^[2] and it stayed in medieval use.^[5]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of tenants and of inhabitants.^[3][2][5]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy speaks of the tenants of a building.^[2][5]
• c. 67–c. 127 AD – Juvenal applies it to Diogenes in his jar.^[2][5]
• 390–406 AD – The Vulgate uses it of the occupants of houses.^[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The occupant of a house, a tenant.^[3][6]
2. An inhabitant of a town, district or country.^[3][2]

References

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