immerens

Forms

immerēns (genitive immerentis); third-declension one-termination adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- (“not”) + merēns (“deserving”), the negative prefix with the present participle of mereō (“to earn, deserve”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan lists it among the derivatives of that verb, which he traces to Proto-Italic *mer-ē- (“to earn”) and, with a query, to Proto-Indo-European *(s)mr-eh₁- (“to earn”), comparing Ancient Greek μείρομαι (meíromai, “to receive one's share”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler date it from Plautus,^[4][5] whose Curculio has male mereri de immerente inscitia est, “to treat badly someone who does not deserve it is folly”.^[3][6]

Semantic evolution

It means not deserving punishment or harm, blameless, innocent: Terence has a wrong done to someone immerenti, and Catullus speaks of a cough that his belly gave him, non immerenti, one who had deserved it.^[3][6] Lucretius splits it as inque merentes, of the innocent struck by lightning, and Horace has a tree fall on the head of its blameless master.^[6][3][7] Lewis and Short call it poetic and post-Augustan in prose.^[6] Valerius Maximus applies it to things, quaedam immerentia, and also has the adverb immerenter, undeservedly.^[6][8] In Fronto and Cyprian it means undeserving of a benefit, unworthy.^[2][7] In a 1555 statute of St John's College, Oxford, the writer calls himself immerentem et indignum, undeserving and unworthy.^[9]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of someone who does not deserve ill treatment.^[3][5]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius splits it as inque merentes.^[6][5]
• 65–8 BC – Horace uses it of a blameless master.^[6][5]
• 100–170 AD – Fronto uses it of those undeserving of help.^[2][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Not deserving punishment or ill treatment, unoffending, blameless, innocent.^[2][6]
2. Not deserving a benefit, unworthy.^[2][7]

Related words

• mereō
• immeritus

Usage notes

Lewis and Short compare it with indignus.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e 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 d e f g h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
9. ^ Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press