immundus

Forms

immundus (feminine immunda, neuter immundum, comparative immundior); first/second-declension adjective^[1] It is also spelled inm-.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- (“not”) + mundus (“clean, neat”).^[2][1][4] The adjective mundus may go back to Proto-Italic *mudno- and Proto-Indo-European *meud- (“to rejoice”), but de Vaan finds the change of meaning unconvincing.^[4] If so, it is cognate with Sanskrit मुद् (múd-, “joy”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler date it from Plautus,^[4][5] whose Cistellaria has “are you going like that, so slovenly?”^[2]

Semantic evolution

It means unclean, dirty or squalid in appearance, of persons and places, as in a fragment of Cicero quoted by Quintilian, “the floor was filthy, muddy with wine”.^[2][3] Horace uses it of foul and shameful language.^[2] Lewis & Short give spurcus, obscēnus and impūrus as synonyms.^[3]

In Christian Latin it is ritually unclean in the sense of the Jewish law, of animals declared impure.^[6] Church Latin glosses it “unclean, impure, foul”,^[7] and in medieval texts it means sinful and also devilish, evil.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a slovenly person.^[2][4][5]
• 65–8 BC – Horace of foul words.^[2][5]
• c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian.^[5]
• Middle Ages – Of sin and of the devil.^[8]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Unclean, dirty, filthy; slovenly, squalid.^[2][3][1]
2. Morally unclean, foul.^[2][3]
3. (Ecclesiastical Latin) Ritually unclean, impure.^[6][7]
4. (Medieval Latin) Sinful; devilish, evil.^[8]

Word family

• immunditiēs
• immunditia

Related words

• mundus

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