inquilinus

Forms

inquilīnus m (genitive inquilīnī, feminine inquilīna); second declension^[1] Lewis and Short also give an adjective inquilīnus, -a, -um.^[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- (“in”) + colō¹ (“to inhabit”) + -īnus,^[3][1] built on an old stem ⟨*quil-⟩ of the verb rather than on ⟨col-⟩.^[3] De Vaan notes that the word is not recorded before Cicero; if it is old, it shows a Proto-Italic /kʷe/ becoming /kʷi/ before a palatal /l/, instead of the change to /kʷo/ seen in the verb.^[4] Wiktionary reconstructs Proto-Italic *enkʷilīnos.^[1] Lewis and Short and Etymonline explain it instead as standing for ⟨*incolīnus⟩, from incola “inhabitant”;^[2][5] the TLL also derives it from that noun, like ⟨Esquilīnus⟩, and reports Leumann's view that vīcīnus “neighbour” influenced its meaning.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler and the OLD find it first in Cicero,^[7][3] who in the Second Philippic says that while his opponent was the tenant of a house, not its owner, the whole place rang with the voices of drunkards (tē inquilīnō, nōn enim dominō).^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The word named someone living in a place that was not his own, especially a lodger or tenant beside the owner (dominus):^[2][8] Suetonius speaks of the tenants of private houses and blocks of flats, and Seneca and Martial of a lodger in the same house.^[2][8] More generally it meant an inhabitant, as of the dwellers of a village on the Po in Pliny the Elder, and Ammianus calls some men the permanent inmates of the prisons.^[3][2][8]

It was easily turned to scorn: Sallust reports Cicero being called an inquilīnus cīvis urbis Rōmae, a citizen who was a mere lodger in Rome, since he was not born there.^[2][8][9] Seneca calls students who attend lectures without learning anything “lodgers, not disciples”, Varro has vices moving in as lodgers, and Tertullian makes the soul the lodger of the flesh.^[2][9] Roman law used it of a kind of serf, perhaps at first a barbarian settled on Roman land.^[3]

Medieval Latin used it for a foreigner and for a free tenant or cottar;^[10] British lawyers distinguished the inquilīnus who rents a house in town from the colōnus who farms the land.^[11] It survives in Italian inquilino “tenant”.^[9] English inquiline meant “lodger” from the 1640s and took its zoological sense, an animal living in another's dwelling, in 1865.^[5]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro uses it figuratively of vices as lodgers.^[2][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of the tenant of a house.^[3][2][7]
• 86–34 BC – Sallust reports Cicero being called an inquilīnus citizen.^[2][9][7]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of the inhabitants of a village.^[3][7]
• c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian calls the soul the lodger of the flesh.^[2][9][7]
• 1640s – English borrows it as inquiline “lodger”.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A lodger or tenant, one who lives in another's house.^[3][2][8]
2. An inhabitant, denizen.^[3][2]
3. (figurative) A mere sojourner, one who is present without belonging.^[2][9]
4. (law) A kind of serf, perhaps originally a barbarian settled on Roman territory.^[3]
5. (Medieval Latin) A foreigner; a free tenant, cottar.^[10][11]

Adjective

1. Of foreign birth, not native.^[2][9]

Word family

• inquilīnātus
• inquilīnō

Related words

• incola
• English inquiline

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ 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 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
8. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
11. ^ a b Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press