infortunium

Forms

īnfortūnium n (genitive īnfortūniī or īnfortūnī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- (“un-”) + fortūna (“luck”) + -ium.^[2][1] The TLL compares iniūria and incūria, and allows that it may instead come from an unattested adjective *īnfortūnus.^[3] De Vaan derives fortūna from a u-stem for “chance, luck” beside fors, from Proto-Italic *forti-, perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *bhr-ti- (“bearing”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus on,^[4][5] who in the Mercator has someone call a matter maxumum infortunium, the greatest misfortune.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It means misfortune or trouble.^[2] In comedy it is often a euphemism for a beating or punishment: Terence has ferres infortunium, you would have got hurt, and Plautus speaks of finding trouble and of guarding against it;^[6][7] Livy uses the same colloquial phrase.^[6][3] The TLL finds it in old comedy, once each in Horace and Livy, and then from Apuleius on, often in Firmicus Maternus.^[3] Lewis & Short note that it is mostly ante- and post-classical and absent from Cicero and Caesar.^[6] Horace has the plural for the sufferings of tragic heroes.^[7][3] Medieval writers use it for misfortune and calamity,^[8] and an interrogation of Templars in 1310 uses it for a crime.^[9]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, of a great misfortune and, euphemistically, of a beating.^[3][6][5]
• 190–159 BC – Terence, of punishment.^[6][5]
• 65–8 BC – Horace, in the plural, of tragic sufferings.^[7][5]
• 1310 – An interrogation of Templars uses it for a crime.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. Misfortune, calamity, trouble.^[2][6][1]
2. (colloquial) A beating, punishment.^[2][7]
3. (Medieval Latin) A crime.^[9]

Related words

• fortūna
• fors
• īnfortūnātus

Usage notes

Döderlein distinguishes it from calamitās: infortūnium is a single vexing mishap, such as losing a purse or receiving blows, while calamitās is a tragic blow such as the loss of a loved one or of power.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
9. ^ a b c du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre
10. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper