interitus

Forms

interitus m (genitive interitūs); fourth declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from intereō (“to perish”) with the suffix -tus.^[2][1] The verb is inter- with eō (“to go”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Indo-European *h₁ey- (“to go”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler gives Cicero as its first author.^[4] Cicero defines it as a kind of departure, separation and parting of things that were held together.^[5]

Semantic evolution

It is violent or untimely death, as Cicero's mourning for an orator's early end, and the extinction of a family (Cicero).^[2] It is the destruction of things, as Catiline plotting the destruction of the city, of institutions, as the fall and ruin of the state, and of qualities: Cicero asks what philosophy it is that does not destroy depravity.^[2] An inscription uses it of the setting of the sun.^[2]

Church Latin glosses it “death, destruction, overthrow, annihilation”.^[6]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero of untimely death and the ruin of the state.^[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. Violent or untimely death; extinction (of a family).^[2][1][6]
2. Destruction, ruin, annihilation.^[2][1][6]
3. The setting (of the sun).^[2]

Related words

• intereō
• eō
• exitus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson