hiatus

Forms

hiātus m (genitive hiātūs); fourth declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin hiō (“to gape”) + -tus, a noun of action.^[2][1][3] De Vaan traces hiō to Proto-Italic *χi-ā- and Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰh₁i-eh₂- (“to gape, be wide open”).^[4] Cognate with Lithuanian žióti (“to open the mouth”), Old Norse gína (“to yawn”) and Old High German ginēn (“to be wide open”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Lucretius,^[5] who speaks of the deep gap of the sky above the earth.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It means the act of gaping or splitting open, as in Cicero's sudden openings of the earth, and the opening so formed, a fissure or a chasm such as the one Gyges went down into.^[2][6] It is also a wide-open mouth: Varro wants dogs with a large gape.^[2] Tacitus uses it for greedy desire, a gaping after rewards.^[2] In prosody it is the meeting of two vowels, as in Quintilian.^[2] English took it in the 1560s for a break or opening, and in the sense gap or interruption from the 1610s.^[7]

Timeline

• 96–55 BC – Lucretius of the gap of the sky.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of chasms in the earth.^[2][5]
• c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian of the clash of vowels.^[2][5]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus of greed for rewards.^[2][5]
• 1560s – Borrowed into English as hiatus.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of gaping or splitting open.^[2]
2. An opening, fissure; a chasm.^[2][6][1]
3. A wide-open mouth or jaws.^[2][6]
4. Greedy desire.^[2][1]
5. (prosody) Hiatus.^[2]

References

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