Etymologically
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imperfectus

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ɪm.pɛrˈfɛk.tʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [im.perˈfɛk.tus][1]

Forms

imperfectus (feminine imperfecta, neuter imperfectum, comparative imperfectior); first/second-declension adjective[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- (“not”) + perfectus (“complete”),[2][1][3] the past participle of perficiō (“to complete”).[1] The Thesaurus compares Ancient Greek ἀτελής (atelḗs, “incomplete”).[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Thesaurus and Köbler find it from Cicero on;[3][4] Lewis & Short note that it is not frequent until after the Augustan age.[5]

Semantic evolution

It means not complete in every respect, unfinished or imperfect, of things and abstract ideas.[2][5] In law it is a transaction that is not yet valid, as a sale in the Digest.[2] Of actions it is not completed, as Caesar's envoy who returned from the senate with his business unfinished, and in Celsus food is undigested.[2] Wiktionary also gives a grammatical sense, the imperfect.[1]

Church Latin glosses it “unfinished, imperfect, incomplete”.[6] It remains in use in medieval texts, as in Albertus Magnus.[4]

Timeline

  • 81–43 BC – Cicero.[3][4]
  • c. 50 BC – Caesar of unfinished business.[2][4]
  • 14–37 AD – Celsus of undigested food.[2][4]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Unfinished, incomplete, imperfect.[2][5][1]
  2. (law) Not yet valid.[2]
  3. Of actions, not completed; of food, undigested.[2]
  4. (grammar) Imperfect.[1]

Word family

  • imperfectiō

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  5. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson