invidus

Forms

invidus (feminine invida, neuter invidum); first/second-declension adjective^[1] Varro has a genitive plural invidum, according to Nonius.^[2]

Etymology

It is a back-formation from invideō (“to envy; to look askance at”), as Walde and Hofmann explained it.^[3][2][1] The verb is in- (“on, against”) with videō (“to see”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *wid-ē- (“to see”) and Proto-Indo-European *uid-eh₁- (“to see”), cognate with Umbrian uirseto (“seen”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus calls a man “a hawk for money, greedy and ill-willed” in the Persa;^[2] Köbler too gives Plautus.^[5]

Semantic evolution

It is first bearing ill will, ill-disposed or hostile, as in Plautus, and so envious, jealous or grudging, as Horace's envious Lycus who must hear the mad din, and Cicero's general neither ambitious nor envious.^[2][6][1] Poets use it of things that grudge, as Ovid's grudging nature that confined him in a narrow space.^[6] As a noun it is an envious person.^[6][7]

Church Latin glosses it “envious”, and as a noun “envious person”.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of an ill-willed money-hawk.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of a general who is not envious.^[6][5]
• 65–8 BC – Horace of envious Lycus.^[2][5]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid of grudging nature.^[6][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Ill-disposed, hostile, malevolent.^[2][1]
2. Envious, jealous, grudging.^[2][6][1][7]

Noun

1. An envious person.^[6][7]

Related words

• invideō
• invidia
• videō
• English envy

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson