Etymologically
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inflatus

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inflatus1 puffed up

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

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