herbidus

Forms

herbidus (feminine herbida, neuter herbidum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin herba (“grass, herb”) + -idus.^[2][3][1][4] The TLL compares flōridus, formed in the same way.^[5] De Vaan rejects the older reconstruction Proto-Indo-European *gʰer-dʰ- for the noun and finds no viable alternative.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Varro's work on farming, of grassy plains.^[2][3][6]

Semantic evolution

It was used of land covered with grass: Livy has grassy fields, Ovid calls Epirus grassy, Pliny the Younger describes islands grassy with reed and rush, and Ammianus grassy riverbanks.^[3] Columella uses it of crops full of weeds.^[3][2] Pliny the Elder uses it of something with a grassy quality, the milk drunk in summer pastures on the mountains.^[2][3] In Ecclesiastical Latin it means full of grass.^[7]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro uses it of grassy plains.^[2][6]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses it of grassy fields.^[3][6]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid calls Epirus grassy.^[3][6]
• 1st century AD – Columella uses it of weedy crops.^[3][6]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of milk from mountain pastures.^[2][6]
• c. 390 AD – Ammianus writes of grassy riverbanks.^[3][6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Covered with grass or other plants, grassy;^[2][3] full of weeds.^[2][3]
2. Having a grassy quality.^[2][3]

Word family

• herbido

Related words

• herbōsus

References

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