Etymologically
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insepultus

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ĩː.sɛˈpʊɫ.tʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [in.seˈpul.tus][1]

Forms

īnsepultus (feminine īnsepulta, neuter īnsepultum); first/second-declension adjective[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- (“not”) + sepultus (“buried”), the negative of the participle of sepeliō (“to bury”).[2][3][4] De Vaan traces sepeliō to Proto-Italic *sepel-je/o- (“to bury”) and Proto-Indo-European *sepel-ie/o- (“to honour”), cognate with Sanskrit सपर्यति (saparyáti).[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it first in Naevius and Plautus.[3] In Plautus' Mostellaria the speaker says his host killed him and buried him secretly in the house, without funeral rites.[2]

Semantic evolution

Cicero has heaps of unburied citizens, Horace unburied limbs, and Livy men thrown out unburied.[6] The OLD separates the sense “buried without the proper rites”, as in that line of Plautus.[2] Seneca calls a death without burial mors insepulta.[6] A gloss equates it with inhumātus.[3] Stelten gives “unburied”.[7]

Timeline

  • c. 235–200 BC – Naevius, the first instance.[3][4]
  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, of a man buried without rites.[2][3][4]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero, of unburied citizens.[6][4]
  • 59 BC–17 AD – Livy, of men thrown out unburied.[6][4]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Not buried, unburied.[2][6][1][7]
  2. Not buried with the proper funeral rites; of a death, without burial.[2][6][1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  6. ^ a b c d e f 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