immobilis

Forms

immōbilis (neuter immōbile); third-declension two-termination adjective^[1] It is also spelled inmōbilis.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- (“not”) + mōbilis (“movable”).^[2][4][1] De Vaan derives mōbilis from a preform ⟨*mowe-bli-⟩ of moveō (“to move”), which he traces to Proto-Indo-European *m(i̯)euh₁- (“to move”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler finds it first in Cicero,^[6] who in the Dream of Scipio describes the earth, the ninth sphere, as staying motionless in one place.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

It is said of what cannot be moved, as Virgil's immovable rock of the Capitol, and of what does not move.^[2][3] Livy calls the Macedonian phalanx unwieldy, and Velleius uses it of a man slow to act.^[2] Figuratively it is unalterable, as Livy's law of fate, and emotionally unmoved, as Virgil says Italy had been unroused and unmoved before.^[2] In the jurists it is used of immovable property, a use that runs through the medieval law codes.^[2][6] English immobile, first of property in the mid-14th century, came from it through Old French.^[7]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero of the motionless earth.^[2][6]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of the Capitoline rock.^[2][6]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of the unwieldy phalanx.^[2][6]
• mid-14th century – English immobile is borrowed through Old French.^[7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Immovable, fixed;^[2][3][1] (law) of property, immovable.^[2][3][1]
2. Motionless, unmoving.^[2][8]
3. Unwieldy; slow to act.^[2]
4. Unalterable, unchanging.^[2][1]
5. Emotionally unmoved, imperturbable.^[2][3]

Word family

• immōbilitās

References

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