inamabilis

Forms

inamābilis (neuter inamābile); third-declension two-termination adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- + amābilis (“lovable”).^[2][1] That adjective is formed from amō (“to love”),^[1] which de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *ama- (“to take, hold”) and Proto-Indo-European *h₃mh₃- (“to take hold of”); he explains the Latin meaning as having developed from “to take someone's hand” to “to regard as a friend”.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Plautus,^[4] in the Bacchides, where a speaker says he lives unlovable and charmless (inamābilis, inlepidus vīvō).^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

Lewis & Short call it a word of poetry and post-Augustan prose.^[5] Virgil applies it to the marsh of the Styx with its gloomy water, and Ovid to the kingdom of the dead;^[5][7] Gellius says that Virgil used it to express the absence of love, as he used inlaudātus for the absence of praise.^[6] Martial compares a girl with an unlovely squirrel, Pliny the Younger calls a kind of work unattractive, and Seneca the Elder has the comparative: nothing is more unlovely than painstaking folly.^[6][5][7] Ovid uses the neuter as an adverb, of a harsh and unpleasant sound.^[5][8]

Medieval writers kept it for people, places and times;^[9] Bede and Alcuin speak of the unlovely time of death.^[9] It survives in Italian inamabile.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of a person.^[5][4]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of the marsh of the Styx.^[5][4]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of the kingdom of the dead.^[5][4]
• c. 165 AD – Gellius comments on Virgil's use of the word.^[6][4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. That cannot be loved, disagreeable, unattractive, odious (of people, places and times).^[2][5][9]
2. (neuter as adverb) Unpleasantly, harshly (of a sound).^[5][8]

Related words

• amābilis
• amō
• illepidus

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
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 d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b c Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press