incestus

Forms

incestus (feminine incesta, neuter incestum); first/second-declension adjective^[1] The noun incestus, genitive incestūs, is of the fourth declension.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- + castus (“pure, chaste”), with the vowel weakened; the grammarian Marius Victorinus notes that this adjective gives ⟨incestus⟩, not ⟨incastus⟩.^[2][4][1] The noun is formed from the adjective with the suffix -tus.^[2] De Vaan explains castus as the old participle of careō (“to lack, be free from”), from Proto-Italic *kas-ē- (“to lack”), a root with no certain Indo-European cognates.^[5] Cognate with Faliscan carefo (“I will lack”) and Oscan kasit (“it is necessary”).^[5]

Festus wrongly derived it from Greek.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates both the adjective and the noun from Cicero,^[6] who in a speech uses the adjective of an unholy act of debauchery committed by a man in women's clothing in the house of the chief pontiff.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In a religious sense it means unclean, unholy or profane, and so unrighteous or sinful, as Horace's “Jupiter, neglected, has often joined the innocent with the guilty”.^[2][3] It also means sexually impure or unchaste, as Horace's unchaste loves, and in particular guilty of incest or involving incest, as Cinna of Smyrna's incestuous womb, and in Statius.^[2] Lewis & Short note that the adjective is mostly poetic and post-Augustan.^[3]

The noun means sexual impurity, often incest; it is mostly Ciceronian, as in quaestio dē incestū, a trial for unchastity.^[2][3] Döderlein notes that incestus is an incestuous person, while incastus is only an unchaste one.^[7] Medieval Latin keeps the noun in the sense incest.^[8] English borrowed incest about 1200, partly from the neuter incestum.^[9]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero of an unholy act and of trials for unchastity.^[2][3][6]
• 65–8 BC – Horace of the guilty and of unchaste loves.^[2][6]
• c. 45–96 AD – Statius of incestuous unions.^[2][6]
• c. 1200 – English incest is borrowed.^[9]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Unclean in a religious sense, unholy, profane; sinful.^[2][3][1]
2. Sexually impure, unchaste.^[2][1]
3. Guilty of incest, incestuous; involving incest.^[2][1]

Noun

1. Sexual impurity, unchastity; incest.^[2][3][8][1]

Word family

• incestō
• incestum
• incestificus
• incestuosus
• incestē

Related words

• castus
• careō
• English incest

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 j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b 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 c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
8. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
9. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com