incontinentia

Forms

incontinentia f (genitive incontinentiae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin incontinēns + -ia, the abstract noun of the adjective meaning “unable to restrain oneself”.^[2][3][1] That adjective is formed from in- (“not”) and continēns (“holding together, restraining oneself”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's first quotation for the sense “lack of self-restraint” is in the Rhetorica ad Herennium, which lists the incontinence of one's opponents among the things a speaker may bring forward.^[2] Cicero uses it in the speech for Caelius, where someone discourses at length on incontinence and intemperance.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Its classical sense was moral: lack of self-control, greed or self-indulgence.^[2][4] Gellius reports Epictetus as saying that the two worst vices were intolerance and incontinence, failing to bear injuries and failing to hold back from pleasures.^[3] From the 1st century AD it also had a literal, medical sense: Pliny the Elder writes of a remedy that is thought to check incontinence of urine.^[2][4]

In Medieval Latin both senses continued, the medical one in natural history and medicine;^[5][6] Bede speaks of the incontinence of the tongue, and the word came to mean unchastity or fornication.^[6][5] English borrowed it in the late 14th century, first of failure to restrain sexual desire.^[7]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it in the speech for Caelius.^[4][8]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of urine that cannot be held.^[2][8]
• c. 165 AD – Gellius quotes Epictetus on incontinence as one of the two worst vices.^[3][8]
• late 14th century – English borrows it, from Old French or directly from Latin, as incontinence.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. Lack of self-restraint, self-indulgence, intemperance.^[2][4]
2. (medicine) Inability to retain, especially incontinence of urine.^[2][4][6]
3. (Medieval Latin) Unchastity, fornication.^[6][5]

Related words

• continentia

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ a b c d 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
7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de