Etymologically
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insanitas

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ĩːˈsaː.nɪ.taːs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [inˈsaː.ni.tas][1]

Forms

īnsānitās f (genitive īnsānitātis); third declension[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin īnsānus (“insane, unsound”) + -itās.[2][3] The adjective is formed from in- (“not”) and sānus (“sound, healthy”),[2] which goes back to Proto-Italic *sāno- and a reconstructed Proto-Indo-European *seh2-no- that de Vaan calls purely mechanical.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Varro is the first to use it, in his Menippean satires, wishing such madness away from his house: “apage in directum a domo nostra istam insanitatem”.[3][5]

Semantic evolution

It means unsoundness, especially of the mind.[2] Cicero sets it against health of the mind, calling folly “quasi insanitas quaedam”, a kind of unsoundness, as wisdom is the mind's health.[6][3] Lewis & Short also give the wider sense of unhealthiness or disease.[6]

English insanity (1580s) comes from it.[7]

Timeline

  • 116–27 BC – Varro uses it of madness.[3][5]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of folly as the opposite of a sound mind.[6][3][5]
  • 1580s – English borrows it as insanity.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Unsoundness of mind, madness.[2][3]
  2. Unhealthiness, disease.[6][1]

Usage notes

The usual Latin word for madness was īnsānia, with which an ancient gloss equates it.[7][3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d 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 g Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  6. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com