instabilitas

Forms

īnstabilitās f (genitive īnstabilitātis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin īnstabilis (“unsteady”) + -tās.^[1][2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

L&S and Georges cite instabilitas mentis, “unsteadiness of mind”, from Pliny the Elder,^[4][5] but the TLL takes this as a false reading for stabilitas and records the word only from the Latin Irenaeus and Arnobius on.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It meant unsteadiness and changeability, of the mind or of a person's character.^[4][5][6] The glosses equate it with insolence and lack of restraint.^[2] Medieval Latin kept both instability and inconstancy.^[7]

Timeline

• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder has it in the manuscripts, a reading the TLL rejects.^[4][2][3]
• 297–310 AD – Arnobius uses it of a person's fickleness.^[5][2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. Instability, unsteadiness.^[4][6][7]
2. Inconstancy, fickleness.^[5][7]

Usage notes

L&S gives inconstantia as a synonym.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
6. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
7. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill