insulsus

Forms

īnsulsus (feminine īnsulsa, neuter īnsulsum, comparative insulsior, adverb īnsulsē); first/second-declension adjective^[1] The comparative īnsulsior is in Jerome.^[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- (“not”) + salsus (“salted, witty”),^[3][4][1] from the root of sāl (“salt, wit”).^[5] The ancient grammarians already explained it as formed from salsus.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus says of a man that he has no dull wit, non insulsum huic ingenium.^[3] Köbler dates it from Catullus.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Its literal sense is unsalted: Columella has unsalted olive lees.^[3][2] Cicero speaks of an appetite for tasteless food.^[2] Figuratively, as salsus also meant witty, it means witless, dull or stupid, of people and of actions or style:^[3][2][1] Cicero says that a not tasteless kind of joke can lie in a single word.^[3] It also means bungling or awkward.^[2][1] Church Latin has it as tasteless, insipid, and silly, absurd or awkward.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, of a man's wit.^[3][5]
• 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus.^[5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of jokes and of tasteless food.^[3][2][5]
• 1st century AD – Columella, of unsalted olive lees.^[3][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Unsalted, insipid.^[3][2][1]
2. Witless, dull, stupid, absurd.^[3][2][1]
3. Bungling, awkward.^[2][1]

Word family

• īnsulsitās
• subinsulsus
• īnsulsē

Related words

• salsus
• sāl

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson