Etymologically

illaesus

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ɪlˈlae̯.sʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ilˈlɛː.s̬us][1]

Forms

illaesus (feminine illaesa, neuter illaesum); first/second-declension adjective[1] It is also spelled inlaesus.[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- (“not”) + laesus (“hurt”), the negative of the participle of laedō (“to hurt”).[2][4][1] De Vaan finds no certain cognates for laedō.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it from Tibullus and Ovid;[4] a poem in the Tibullan collection has a boar that will get away unharmed.[2]

Semantic evolution

Lewis & Short think it perhaps not found before Augustus.[3] Ovid uses it of a body unharmed and of healthy parts that a cancer spreads to.[3][2] Seneca has a man who escaped through sword, ruins and fire unharmed and without loss, and uses it of happiness that has never been struck.[2] The TLL notes that it often works as a litotes.[4] In Medieval Latin it is “intact, untouched”.[6] Stelten gives “unharmed”.[7]

Timeline

  • 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid, of an unharmed body.[3][8]
  • 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca, of escaping unharmed.[2][8]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Physically unharmed, uninjured; unimpaired by illness; undiminished.[2][3][1][7]
  2. Unharmed in any way, untouched, intact.[2][6]
  3. Of abstract things, unimpaired, inviolate.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  5. ^ 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 Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
  7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  8. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de