immemorabilis
Forms
immemorābilis (neuter immemorābile); third-declension two-termination adjective[1][2] Also spelled inmemorābilis.[1][2]
Etymology
It is from Latin in- (“not”) + memorābilis (“memorable, worth mentioning”).[1][3][2]
Earliest recorded meaning
It is first found in Plautus,[4] in the prologue of the Captivi, which promises a play without filthy verses immemorabiles, not fit to be repeated.[1][2]
Semantic evolution
Lewis & Short call it ante-Classical.[2] Lucretius used it of a space too great to be described,[1][2] and Plautus also gave it an active sense in the Cistellaria: an old woman who keeps a tight rein on her tongue and will not tell.[1][2][3] Later the TLL records it of a person whose virtues cannot be told, in an African epitaph for a wife, and in the Latin Irenaeus in the sense “consigned to oblivion”.[3] In Church Latin it also means immemorial.[5]
Timeline
- c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of verses not fit to be repeated, and of a woman who keeps silent.[1][2][4]
- 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it of an indescribably great space.[1][2][4]
Meanings
Adjective
- Not fit to be repeated, unmentionable.[1][2]
- That cannot be expressed, indescribable.[1][2][3]
- (active) Unwilling to tell anything, silent; unable to recollect.[1][2][3]
- (Late Latin) Forgotten, consigned to oblivion.[3]
- (Ecclesiastical Latin) immemorial.[5]
Related words
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ a b c d e f Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
- ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
- ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson