inertia

Forms

inertia f (genitive inertiae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from iners (“unskilled, idle”) with the suffix -ia.^[2][3][1] The adjective is formed from the negative in- (“not”) and ars (“skill”), which de Vaan derives from Proto-Italic *arti- and Proto-Indo-European *h₂r-tí- (“the fitting”), cognate with Ancient Greek ἄρτι (árti, “just, exactly”).^[1][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler gives Cato as its first author,^[5] who writes that “if you do not exercise men, idleness and torpor do more harm than exercise”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is first lack of skill, as Cicero's minds judged by “virtues and vices, skills and lack of skill”, which Lewis and Short call rare.^[2][6] More often it is idleness, sloth or indolence, as in Cato, Cicero and Livy, and in war a want of spirit or enterprise.^[2][1] Church Latin glosses it “inactivity, idleness, inertia, lack of skill”.^[7]

Kepler took it into physics as a term for the property of matter by which it stays at rest or in uniform motion unless acted on, and Newton used it in 1687 in his New Latin;^[8] English inertia is recorded from 1713.^[8]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato of idleness.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of lack of skill.^[2][5]
• 1687 – Newton uses it as a term of physics.^[8]
• 1713 – English inertia.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. Want of skill, unskilfulness, ignorance.^[2][6][1]
2. Idleness, sloth, indolence; want of spirit.^[2][1][7]
3. (New Latin, physics) Inertia.^[8]

Related words

• iners
• inersitūdō
• inerticulus
• ars
• ignāvia
• sōcordia
• English inert

Usage notes

Döderlein distinguishes it from ignāvia: ignāvia is a love of idleness rooted in temperament, a lack of the impulse to act that marks the nobler man, while inertia lies in the character and makes a man useless to society.^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. ^ 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper