inhumatus

Forms

inhumātus (feminine inhumāta, neuter inhumātum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- (“not”) + humātus (“buried”), the negative of the participle of humō (“to bury”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan derives humō from humus (“earth, ground”), which goes back to Proto-Italic *χomo- and Proto-Indo-European *dʰǵʰ-ōm (“earth”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL and de Vaan find it first in Pacuvius,^[3][4] who has the genitive plural ⟨inhumatum⟩ in ossuum inhumatum aestuosam aulam, “a seething hall of unburied bones”.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

The TLL records it in Pacuvius, in Varro, who took it from pontifical usage, and then in Cicero, Lucretius and Virgil.^[3] Cicero uses it of a man who lay thrown out unburied, and Virgil of unburied bodies.^[5] A gloss renders it by insepultus.^[3] Stelten gives “unburied” for Church Latin.^[6]

Timeline

• 220–130 BC – Pacuvius, of unburied bones.^[2][5][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of a body left unburied.^[5][7]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil, of unburied bodies.^[5][7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Not interred, unburied.^[2][5][1][6]

Related words

• humō
• humus
• insepultus

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 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 e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de