Etymologically
Log in

incontinens

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 20 October 2026 at 21:19. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ɪŋˈkɔn.tɪ.nẽːs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [iŋˈkɔn.ti.nens][1]

Forms

incontinēns (genitive incontinentis, adverb incontinenter); third-declension one-termination adjective[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- + continēns (“holding together, self-restrained”), the participle of contineō (“to hold together”) with the negative prefix.[2][1][3] That verb is formed from con- and teneō (“to hold”),[1] which de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *t(e)nē- and Proto-Indo-European *tn-eh1- (“to hold”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Plautus,[5] whose Asinaria calls a man intemperate and a hater of his wife, incontinentem atque ōsōrem uxōris suae,[2] as the opposite of continentem a few lines before.[3]

Semantic evolution

It meant lacking control over one's appetites, unrestrained or intemperate, often of sexual desire:[2][3] Horace speaks of unrestrained hands and of the liver of Tityos, and Gellius says that Latin calls men given over to bestial pleasures incontinentēs or intemperantēs.[2] Seneca uses it with a genitive, and of natural forces: nothing is as violent or as unable to restrain itself as a great mass of water.[2] Pliny the Elder has the literal sense, not holding or retaining.[2][6] The adverb incontinenter is in Cicero.[6]

Christian writers set it against continentēs, and the Vulgate says that men will be incontinentēs.[3] British medieval writers use it for intemperate and, of clergy, for unchaste.[7]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of an intemperate husband.[2][5]
  • 65–8 BC – Horace uses it of unrestrained hands.[2][5]
  • 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of a womb that does not retain.[2][5]
  • c. 165 AD – Gellius gives it as the Latin word for men ruled by their pleasures.[2][5]
  • 390–406 AD – The Vulgate says that men will be incontinentēs.[3][5]
  • 1397 – A visitation of the diocese of Hereford uses it of an unchaste chaplain.[7]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Not holding or retaining.[2][6]
  2. Unable to control one's appetites, intemperate, incontinent; with a genitive, unable to restrain.[2][6]
  3. (Medieval Latin) Unchaste.[7]

Word family

  • incontinentia

References

  1. ^ a b c d e 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 c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  5. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  6. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ 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