inextricabilis

Forms

inextrīcābilis (neuter inextrīcābile); third-declension two-termination adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- (“not”) + extrīcō (“to disentangle”) + -bilis (“-able”).^[2][1] De Vaan lists extrīcō (from Plautus on) among the derivatives of trīcae (“complications, tricks; trifles”), whose etymology he calls uncertain.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first known use is in Virgil's Aeneid (6.27), of the maze of the labyrinth, from which no one could find the way out (inextrīcābilis error).^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

It is a poetic and post-Augustan word.^[4] Besides pathless places, it is used of things that cannot be disentangled: Apuleius has it of a confused heap of seeds that Psyche does not even try to sort.^[2] Seneca uses it of a burden one cannot escape and, in the Phoenissae, of a riddle that cannot be solved,^[2] and Pliny the Elder, in a good sense, of the intricate workmanship of the smallest insects.^[2] Pliny also uses it of bark that cannot be stripped off a tree.^[2][4]

The word survives in Church Latin with the meaning “inextricable”.^[6]

Timeline

• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of the labyrinth.^[4][5]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it of an inescapable burden and an insoluble riddle.^[2][5]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of intricate workmanship and of bark that cannot be stripped.^[2][5]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius uses it of a heap of seeds that cannot be sorted.^[2][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Impossible to disentangle or sort out; of places, from which one cannot find a way out, pathless.^[2][4]
2. Of circumstances, that one cannot escape from.^[2]
3. Of problems, insoluble.^[2]
4. Of workmanship, intricate.^[2]
5. Impossible to strip off or detach.^[2][4]

Related words

• extrīcō
• trīcae
• intrīcō

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson