impotentia

Forms

impotentia f (genitive impotentiae); first declension^[1] It is also spelled inpotentia.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin impotēns (“powerless; ungovernable”) + -ia.^[2][1][4] impotēns is the negative of potēns (“powerful”), which de Vaan derives from a verb Proto-Italic *pot-ē- (“to be master”), built on Proto-Italic *poti- (“master, in control of”) from Proto-Indo-European *pót-i- (“master, lord”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it from Terence and Sisenna on.^[4] In Terence's Adelphoe people whose affairs go less well think they are always shut out because of their weakness.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The first sense, in Terence, is weakness and helplessness, or want of means;^[2][3] Donatus glosses it "infirmity".^[4] Much more often it is lack of self-control: Cicero defines it as a state of mind far removed from temperance and moderation,^[3] and a tragic poet joins it to crimes and boastful talk.^[2] Velleius says someone never used his power to the point of excess, Livy speaks of the unruliness of women, and Tacitus of the veterans.^[3] Horace imagines a land where no star's burning violence scorches the flock.^[3] Stelten gives "impotence" for Church Latin,^[6] and the English impotence first meant physical weakness and poverty.^[7]

Timeline

• 190–159 BC – Terence of weakness.^[2][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of lack of self-control.^[3][8]
• 65–8 BC – Horace of the violence of a star.^[3]
• early 15th century – impotence appears in English, from Old French.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. Weakness, helplessness; lack of means, poverty.^[2][3][1]
2. Lack of self-restraint, immoderate behaviour, violence, fury.^[2][3][1]
3. (Ecclesiastical Latin) Impotence.^[6]

Related words

• impotēns
• potentia
• potēns
• English impotence

References

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