inscitia

Forms

īnscītia f (genitive īnscītiae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin īnscītus (“ignorant, clumsy”) + -ia.^[2][3][1] īnscītus goes back to sciō (“to know”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *skije/o- (“to know”) and perhaps Proto-Indo-European *skh₁-i(e/o)- (“to incise”), to know having grown from to distinguish.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has it first, in the Miles gloriosus: “forgive my ignorance and stupidity”.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

It is ignorance, especially in practical matters, clumsiness or ineptitude, usually with a note of blame.^[2][6] Lewis & Short contrast it with īnscientia, the mere absence of knowledge, though Tacitus does not keep them apart, as when he writes of soldiers killed in the dark while the others were unaware.^[6][2] Paul the Deacon's Festus glosses it stultitia, foolishness.^[3] Church Latin glosses it ignorance.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of ignorance and stupidity.^[2][5]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus of unawareness.^[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Ignorance, inexperience, clumsiness; stupidity.^[2][6][7][1]
2. Lack of knowledge, unawareness.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson