inferi

Forms

īnferī m pl (genitive īnferōrum or īnferum); second declension^[1] An inscription spells it eimferīs.^[1]

Etymology

It is the masculine plural of īnferus (“lower, below”), used as a noun.^[1][2] De Vaan traces ⟨īnferus⟩ to Proto-Italic *enþero- (“lower”) and Proto-Indo-European *n̥dʰero- (“lower”), cognate with Faliscan ifra (“beneath”), Sanskrit अधर (ádhara-, “lower”) and Gothic 𐌿𐌽𐌳𐌰𐍂 (undar, “under”), and perhaps with Gaulish anderon (“of the gods of the underworld”).^[3] The ⟨f⟩ inside the word may be a dialect form, as the Faliscan word suggests, or may have arisen because ⟨in-⟩ was felt to be the preposition.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates ⟨īnferus⟩ from Plautus,^[3] who calls on the “gods and goddesses above and below” in the Cistellaria.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is the inhabitants of the underworld, both the dead and the gods below, as Cicero's “to have gone to the gods above rather than to those below”.^[1][2] By metonymy it is the land of the dead, the underworld itself, as Ennius' vast caves of the dead and Apuleius' bars of the underworld.^[1]

Church Latin glosses it “those in the underworld, the dead”, and the singular īnferus as the underworld, hell or Sheol;^[4] in medieval Latin the plural also means hell.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of the gods below.^[2][6]
• 204–169 BC – Ennius of the caves of the underworld.^[1][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of going to the gods below.^[2][6]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius of the bars of the underworld.^[1][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. The inhabitants of the underworld, the dead and the infernal gods.^[1][2][4]
2. The underworld, the land of the dead;^[1][4] (Medieval Latin) hell.^[5]

Related words

• īnferus
• īnfernus
• īnfrā
• superī

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
5. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de