irreverens

Forms

irreverēns (genitive irreverentis); third-declension one-termination adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin in-² (“not”) + reverēns (“respectful”), the negative prefix added to the present participle of revereor (“to respect”).^[2][3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pliny the Younger (letters of AD 97–113) is the first to use it: he asks that nobody should think him irreverent towards his work because he had not kept away from the courts before a reading.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

Lewis and Short call it post-Augustan.^[4] It takes a genitive (Pliny), a dative (matri in the Life of Caracalla in the Historia Augusta), or in and erga with the accusative: Tertullian speaks of men most irreverent towards the pagans' gods.^[3][4] Christian writers used it of people who failed in respect towards masters, the clergy or the lame.^[3]

In Medieval Latin it described someone who does not respect the law and shrinks from nothing, a lawless rebel.^[5]

Timeline

• 97–113 AD – Pliny the Younger uses it with a genitive in his letters.^[3][4]
• c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian uses it of men irreverent towards the gods.^[3][6]
• 380–400 AD – The Historia Augusta uses it of disrespect towards a mother.^[3][4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Disrespectful, irreverent; not showing due regard.^[2][4][7]
2. (Medieval Latin) Lawless; stopping at nothing.^[5]

Related words

• English irreverent

Usage notes

It is also spelled inreverens, the form found in inscriptions.^[3][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
6. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson