Etymologically
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insulsus

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ĩːˈsʊɫ.sʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [inˈsul.sus][1]

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

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