Etymologically
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indoctus

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ɪnˈdɔk.tʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [inˈdɔk.tus][1]

Forms

indoctus (feminine indocta, neuter indoctum); first/second-declension adjective[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- + doctus (“learned, taught”);[2][1][3] Varro notes that what is “not taught” is called ⟨indoctum⟩.[3] The participle doctus belongs to doceō (“to teach”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *dok-eje- and Proto-Indo-European *doḱ-ei̯e/o- (“to have someone accept something”).[4] Cognate with Ancient Greek δοκεῖ (dokeî, “it seems”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first example in the OLD is in Plautus, where a man complains that a rascal fleeced him, ignorant as he was, with learned tricks.[2]

Semantic evolution

It means unlearned, ignorant or uninformed, of persons, a classical use found in the Rhetorica ad Herennium and Cicero.[2][5] It also means untrained in a particular skill, as Cicero's unskilled charioteer dragged from his chariot.[2] Church Latin glosses it “unlearned”.[6]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of an ignorant man.[2][7]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of an untrained charioteer.[2][7]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Unlearned, ignorant, uninformed.[2][5][1]
  2. Untrained in a particular skill.[2][5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de