halitus

Forms

hālitus m (genitive hālitūs); fourth declension^[1] Also spelled alitus.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from hālō (“to breathe, exhale”) with the suffix ⟨-tus⟩.^[4][1][3] De Vaan reports Schrijver's view that hālō is an early verb from a noun Proto-Italic *anaslo- (“breath”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂enh₁-slo- (“a breathing”), with the ⟨h-⟩ added as an imitative element or by hypercorrection; he compares Sanskrit अनिति (ániti, “to breathe”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lucretius has it first,^[5][6] of mists and heat pressed out of the earth like an exhalation.^[4]

Semantic evolution

It is any exhalation or vapour, and the breath one breathes: Cicero, in verse, has the Nemean lion breathing out its last breath.^[4][2] Lewis & Short call it poetic and post-Augustan.^[2] Persius has heavy breath rising from a sick throat, and Wiktionary gives “bad breath”.^[2][1] Columella uses it of the blowing of the north winds, which shepherds should watch so as to graze the flock against the wind.^[4] Church Latin has “breath, exhalation”.^[7]

Timeline

• 96–55 BC – Lucretius, of vapours from the earth.^[4][5][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of a lion's last breath.^[4][2][6]
• 1st century AD – Columella, of the north winds.^[4][6]
• 34–62 AD – Persius, of the breath of the sick.^[2][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. An exhalation, vapour, steam.^[4][2][1]
2. Breath; bad breath.^[4][2][1][7]
3. The blowing of a wind.^[4]

Related words

• hālō
• exhālō
• anima
• spīritus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon 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 h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c 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 c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson