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inflatus

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Etymology and origin of the Latin word inflatus

inflatus1 puffed up

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
Rhetorica ad Herennium
Ultimate origin
Latin (flō)
Etymology tree of inflatus1
inherited borrowed derived
Latin inflo
Latin inflatus

Forms

īnflātus (feminine īnflāta, neuter īnflātum, comparative īnflātior); first/second-declension adjective[1][2]

Etymology

The adjective is from Latin īnflō (“to blow into, inflate”): its perfect passive participle, used as an adjective.[1][3][4] That verb is a compound of in- (“into”) and flō (“to blow”), which de Vaan derives, with some doubt, from a root Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₁- (“to blow”).[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first quotation is in the Rhetorica ad Herennium, of style: to the inexperienced, an oration that swells and is inflata often seems grand.[1][7] Köbler dates it from Cicero,[8] who says that a puffed up and swollen mind, inflatus et tumens animus, is in a state of vice.[1][7]

Semantic evolution

Its literal sense, puffed out or swollen, appears in Suetonius, of a cheek more swollen than the other, and in Ovid of flying hair.[1][2] Figuratively it is puffed up with pride: Livy has a young man who came back inflatior, and a line of Seneca's tragedy has ponite inflatos tumidosque vultus, “put away your puffed up and swollen looks”.[1] Georges also gives it the sense angry, of the mind, in Cicero.[2] Of style it means turgid or bombastic: Cicero warns the orator against the inflated kind of speech, Propertius has the somnia of an inflated Callimachus, and Tacitus says some found Cicero inflatus et tumens.[1][7] In Ecclesiastical Latin it means swollen, puffed up, inflated.[9]

Timeline

  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of a puffed up mind and of inflated style.[1][8]
  • 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses the comparative of a young man grown proud.[1][8]
  • 98–115 AD – Tacitus reports that some called Cicero inflatus.[1][8]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Puffed out, swollen.[1][2][9]
  2. Puffed up, conceited, proud; angry.[1][2]
  3. Of style, speakers or writers, turgid, bombastic.[1][2][7]

inflatus2 blowing

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
81–43 BC, Cicero
Ultimate origin
Latin (flō)
Etymology tree of inflatus2
inherited borrowed derived
Latin inflo
Latin inflatus

Forms

īnflātus m (genitive īnflātūs); fourth declension[1][2]

Etymology

The noun is from Latin īnflō (“to blow into”) + -tus, an action noun of the fourth declension.[1][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler and the TLL record it first in Cicero,[8][4] who has primo inflatu tibicinis, “at the piper's first blast”, and compares the ears of the people to pipes: if they do not take the inflatus, the orator must stop.[1][3]

Semantic evolution

Cicero also uses it of divine inspiration, aliquo instinctu inflatuque divino, and, in his translation of Aeschylus, of the swelling growth by which Prometheus' devoured liver is renewed.[1][4] Tertullian uses it of the Valentinians' breathing of a spiritual seed into the soul, and of beans as food that causes flatulence.[4][7]

Timeline

  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of a piper's blast, of inspiration and of swelling.[1][8]
  • c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian uses it of flatulence.[7][8]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A blowing into a wind instrument, a blast.[1][3][2]
  2. Breathing in of a deity, inspiration.[1][3]
  3. Expansion, swelling; flatulence.[1][7]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  3. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  5. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
  8. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  9. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
Cite this entry

“Inflatus.” Etymologically, 20 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/la/inflatus. Accessed 20 Oct. 2026.

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