Etymologically
Log in

hendecasyllabus

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 20 October 2026 at 12:55. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Forms

hendecasyllabus m (genitive hendecasyllabī); second declension[1] It is also written hendecasyllabos, with the Greek ending.[2][3] Manuscripts often spell it with en-.[4] As an adjective it is hendecasyllabus, -a, -um.[2][5]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek ἑνδεκασύλλαβος (hendekasúllabos).[2][4][1][3] It passed into Italian as endecasillabo.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL records it from Catullus on.[4][3] In one poem he tells someone to expect three hundred hendecasyllables, hendecasyllabos trecentos exspecta, and another opens by summoning them: adeste, hendecasyllabi, quot estis omnes undique.[2][4]

Semantic evolution

As a noun it is a line of eleven syllables, above all the Phalaecean, and in the plural a poem or poems in that metre.[2][4] Seneca the Elder reports that Catullus, in his hendecasyllables, calls Calvus salaputium disertum, an eloquent little mannikin;[2][4] Quintilian, Statius and Pliny the Younger also use it.[2][3] The TLL finds it rarely as an adjective except in the grammarians,[4] where Terentianus Maurus speaks of a versus hendecasyllabus,[5] and grammarians name kinds such as the Sapphic, Alcaic and Archilochian hendecasyllable.[5] Marius Victorinus notes that some metres are named from the number of their syllables.[4]

Timeline

  • 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus calls his poems hendecasyllables.[2][4][6]
  • c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian discusses hendecasyllables.[2][6]
  • c. 45–96 AD – Statius includes hendecasyllables in a book of his Silvae.[2][6]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Of a line of verse: of eleven syllables.[2][4][5]

Noun

  1. A line of eleven syllables, a hendecasyllable, especially the Phalaecean.[2][3][5]
  2. (in the plural) A poem or poems in that metre.[2][4]

References

  1. ^ a b 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 Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
  4. ^ 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
  5. ^ a b c d e f Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
  6. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de