Etymologically
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infelicitas

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ĩː.feːˈliː.kɪ.taːs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [iɱ.feˈliː.t͡ʃi.tas][1]

Forms

īnfēlīcitās f (genitive īnfēlīcitātis); third declension[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin īnfēlīx (“unlucky”) + -tās.[2][1][3] That adjective is in- (“not”) with fēlīx (“lucky”), which de Vaan explains as first “suckling, with young”, then “fruitful”, “fortunate”, going back to Proto-Italic *fēl(w)ī- (“suckling”) and Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-l(u)-i-.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler date it from Terence,[4][3] where a man cries out at his bad luck.[2]

Semantic evolution

It is misfortune or ill luck, and an instance of it;[2][5] Lewis & Short call it rare but classical.[2][5] Cicero uses it of lack of success, saying that soothsayers are not so unlucky that nothing they foretell ever happens by chance, and it is also infelicity of style.[2] Seneca uses it of an unhappy condition, wretchedness.[2] The TLL notes that Christian writers use mea īnfēlīcitās of the speaker himself.[6] Church Latin glosses it unhappiness, wretchedness.[7]

Timeline

  • 190–159 BC – Terence of bad luck.[2][4][3]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of the soothsayers' failure.[2][5]
  • 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca of wretchedness.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Misfortune, ill luck.[2][5][1]
  2. Unhappy condition, wretchedness.[2][7]
  3. Lack of success;[2] (of style) infelicity.[2]

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 k l m Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  4. ^ a b c 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 d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson