inultus

Forms

inultus (feminine inulta, neuter inultum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from in- (“not”) and ⟨ultus⟩, the participle of ulcīscor (“to avenge”).^[2][1] De Vaan traces ⟨ulcīscor⟩ to Proto-Italic *olk- (“to destroy, take revenge”), perhaps from the root of dēleō (“to destroy”), Proto-Indo-European *h₃elh₁- (“to perish”); the comparison with Ancient Greek ἀλκή (alkḗ, “resistance”) he finds semantically weak.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler gives Plautus as its first author,^[4] as in the Amphitruo: “he will never make a fool of me and get away with it”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Of persons it is “scot-free, unpunished”, as in Plautus, and “unavenged”, as “the Gracchi lie unavenged” in the Rhetorica ad Herennium, Cicero's care that Marius should not be unavenged, and Livy's generals.^[2][5] Of crimes and injuries it is “unpunished”, as Terence's “he will never get away with that”, and in poetry of prayers or hatred “unanswered”, as Horace's “I shall not be left with my prayers unavenged”.^[2]

Church Latin glosses it “unavenged, unpunished”.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of going unpunished.^[2][4]
• 190–159 BC – Terence of an unpunished deed.^[2][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of the unavenged dead.^[5][4]
• 65–8 BC – Horace of unanswered prayers.^[2][4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Unpunished, scot-free; unharmed.^[2][1]
2. Unavenged, (of prayers, hatred) unanswered.^[2][1][6]
3. (of crimes) For which no vengeance is taken.^[2]

Related words

• ulcīscor
• ultiō
• ultor
• impūnis

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 i j 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 c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson