infitiae

Forms

īnfitiae f pl (genitive īnfitiārum); first declension; only the accusative īnfitiās is used^[1][2][3] Manuscripts often spell it īnficiae.^[2][3]

Etymology

The OLD analyses it as from Latin in- (“not”) + *fatus (“said”) + -ia, comparing Ancient Greek φατός (phatós, “said, spoken”).^[1] De Vaan, under fateor, likewise takes it to continue a form meaning “unsaid”, *in-fato-.^[4] An ancient scholiast on Terence derived it from “not speaking”.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found first in Plautus,^[5][4] where a character asks why someone chooses to deny what has been done.^[1]

Semantic evolution

It occurs only in the accusative, in the phrase īnfitiās īre, “to deny”, with an accusative, an accusative and infinitive or quīn.^[1][2][3] Except in early Latin it is very rarely used without a negative, so that nōn eō īnfitiās means “I do not deny”; it is not found in Cicero or Caesar.^[3][6] Nepos has the parenthesis quod nēmō it īnfitiās, “which nobody denies”.^[6][1]

It is also used of disowning obligations or claims, as when Plautus has a man refuse to acknowledge a debt; the jurist Gaius cites an oath that one does not deny a claim in bad faith.^[1] Medieval writers kept the phrase, with variants such as in īnfitiās īre, and also used the noun for denial or defamation.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses īnfitiās īre of denying facts and debts.^[1][5]
• c. 100–24 BC – Nepos writes quod nēmō it īnfitiās.^[1][6][5]
• 59 BC–AD 17 – Livy uses it with an accusative and infinitive.^[1][5]
• 140–180 AD – Gaius uses it of denying a legal claim.^[1][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. denial; only in īnfitiās īre, to deny, refuse to acknowledge as true.^[1][3][6]
2. In the same phrase, to disown or repudiate (an obligation or claim).^[1]
3. (Medieval Latin) Denial; defamation.^[7]

Related words

• īnfitior
• īnfitiātiō
• īnfitiātor

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b 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 e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ a b Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften