inexhaustus

Forms

inexhaustus (feminine inexhausta, neuter inexhaustum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- (“not”) + exhaustus (“drained, used up”), the past participle of exhauriō (“to drain, exhaust”).^[2][3][4] De Vaan traces hauriō (“to draw (water)”) to Proto-Indo-European *h₂eus-ie/o- (“to scoop”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first known use is in Virgil's Aeneid, of an island “rich in the inexhaustible mines of the Chalybes” (insula inexhaustis Chalybum generosa metallis).^[2][6][3]

Semantic evolution

Silius Italicus uses it of cities not drained by war and of strength not spent,^[3][2] and Tacitus of youthful vigour not enfeebled.^[6] Lewis and Short call it poetic and post-Augustan.^[6] It continued in Christian Latin.^[7][4]

Timeline

• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of mines.^[2][4]
• 25–101 AD – Silius Italicus uses it of cities and of strength.^[2][3][4]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus uses it of youthful vigour.^[6][4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Not exhausted, not used up or drained; of cities, not plundered; of youth, not weakened.^[2][6]
2. Inexhaustible, limitless.^[2]

Related words

• exhauriō

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 d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson