inexplebilis

Forms

inexplēbilis (neuter inexplēbile); third-declension two-termination adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- (“not”) + expleō (“to fill up, satisfy”) + -bilis (“-able”).^[2][1] Köbler takes it through the adjective explēbilis (“that can be filled”), and analyses the verb as ⟨ex-⟩ with a simple verb “to fill” not attested on its own.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL and Köbler date it from Cicero,^[4][3] who defines craving as libīdō inexplēbilis, an insatiable desire.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Lewis & Short call it classical.^[5] It is used of people and animals that cannot be filled, as of a creature insatiable in drinking in Pliny, a stomach in Seneca, and the jaws of the people in Cicero,^[5] and of passions that can never be satisfied: Cicero's cupiditās, Florus' hunger for honours.^[2][5] With a genitive it means insatiable of something: Livy calls a man inexplēbilis virtūtis vēraeque laudis.^[5] In Apuleius it is used of philosophy's mixing bowl, of which one cannot have enough.^[2] Ancient glossaries explain it as īnsatiābilis.^[4] In Ecclesiastical Latin it means insatiable and extraordinary.^[6]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of insatiable desire.^[2][4][3]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy, with a genitive.^[5][3]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca, of a stomach and of the mind.^[2][5][3]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius, of something one cannot have enough of.^[2][3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. That cannot be filled or sated, insatiable (of people and animals).^[2][5][1]
2. Impossible to satisfy (of passions and appetites).^[2][5]
3. Of which one cannot have enough.^[2]
4. (Ecclesiastical Latin) Extraordinary.^[6]

Related words

• expleō
• īnsatiābilis

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson