Etymologically
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immundus

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ɪmˈmʊn.dʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [imˈmun.dus][1]

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

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