incorporalis

Forms

incorporālis (neuter incorporāle); third-declension two-termination adjective^[1][2]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- (“not”) + corporālis (“bodily”).^[1][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lewis & Short call it post-Augustan;^[2] Seneca writes that whatever exists is either corporeal or incorporeal, aut corporale est aut incorporale.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

It means without body or substance, immaterial, intangible, incorporeal.^[1] Quintilian applies it to a right, iūs incorporāle.^[2] The grammarians use it of nouns that name something incorporeal, as Priscian of virtūs,^[2] and Pompeius defines such things as those that can be neither seen nor touched, like piety.^[4] Seneca uses the neuter plural incorporālia as a noun, incorporeal things.^[5] Boethius uses it in his commentary on Porphyry.^[4] It continues in Church Latin and medieval Latin, incorporeal, immaterial.^[6][7]

Timeline

• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca, of incorporeal things.^[2][3]
• c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian, of an incorporeal right.^[2][3]
• 6th century AD – Priscian, of abstract nouns.^[2][3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Without body or substance, immaterial, intangible, incorporeal.^[1][2][6][7]
2. (grammar) Of nouns: denoting something incorporeal, abstract.^[2][5]

Word family

• incorporalitas

Related words

• corporālis
• corpus
• incorporeus

References

1. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill