inconditus

Forms

inconditus (feminine incondita, neuter inconditum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- (“not”) + conditus (“put together, founded”), the participle of condō (“to put together, found, store”).^[2][3][1] Servius' commentary explains ⟨condere⟩ as to compose, so that this is the opposite.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's earliest example is Lucilius, of the scurfy, uneven snouts of blockheads.^[2] Köbler dates it from Cicero.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Its main sense is unpolished, rough or crude, of speech and the arts: Cicero says that all civil law other than Rome's is incredibly crude and almost ridiculous.^[2] Of people it means unrefined or barbarous, as Sallust's primitive way of life in which all right lay in strength, and of movements clumsy, as Pliny the Elder's dancing elephants.^[2] It also means not orderly, confused, and of troops undisciplined, as Livy's raw recruits; the jurist Papinian uses it of a muddled argument.^[2] Following other senses of condō, it means unburied in Seneca the Elder, not stored in Columella, and in Tertullian uncreated.^[2][5]

Timeline

• c. 180–102 BC – Lucilius of coarse faces.^[2][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of crude laws.^[2][4]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of undisciplined recruits.^[2][4]
• c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian of what is uncreated.^[5][4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Unpolished, rough, crude; of people, unrefined, barbarous; of movements, clumsy.^[2][5][1]
2. Disordered, confused; of troops, undisciplined; muddle-headed.^[2][5][1]
3. Unburied; not stored.^[2][5]
4. (Late Latin) Not made, uncreated.^[5]

Related words

• condō
• conditus

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 i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b 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 d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press