iusiurandum

Forms

iūsiūrandum n (genitive iūrisiūrandī or iūsiūrandī); variously declined, third declension, second declension^[1] Often written as two words, iūs iūrandum, with both parts declined: genitive iūris iūrandī, ablative iūre iūrandō.^[2][3][1] Plautus has the order inverted, iūrandō iūre, and Pacuvius the plural iūra iūranda.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is from Latin iūs² (“law, right”) + iūrandus (“to be sworn”), the gerundive of iūrō (“to swear”).^[1][3][5] De Vaan explains that verb as made from the noun, Proto-Italic *jowes-ā-je-, and the noun as probably an old s-stem.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it from Plautus, Naevius, Cato and Terence on.^[4] In the Captivi a character asks whether he will be doubted when he swears solemnly, if an oath carries little trust.^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

It meant an oath, whether or not in a legal setting.^[2] Cicero defined it as a religious affirmation and said that whoever breaks an oath wrongs Fides, whose temple stood beside Jupiter's on the Capitol.^[4][3] Its many set phrases are listed by Lewis and Short and Georges: to swear an oath, to take one, to tender it to an opponent in court, to demand or refuse it, to release someone from it, and to bind a person or a state by oath.^[3][7]

Döderlein contrasts it, and the later iūrāmentum, with sacrāmentum, the soldier's oath to his standard.^[8] Servius distinguished the oath, which prays for good things, from the curse, which prays for evil.^[4] Ecclesiastical Latin kept it for an oath,^[9] and Köbler records it in the Bible, the capitularies, the formularies and the Burgundian and Visigothic laws.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of a solemn oath.^[4][2][5]
• 234–149 BC – Cato uses it in a speech.^[2][5]
• 220–130 BC – Pacuvius has the plural iūra iūranda.^[4][5]
• 190–159 BC – Terence uses it of an oath that confirms trust.^[4][2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero defines it as a religious affirmation.^[4][3][5]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar uses it of binding men by oath.^[3][5]
• 533 AD – The Digest uses it of releasing a party from an oath.^[3][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. An oath.^[2][3][7]

Related words

• iūs²
• iūrō
• sacrāmentum

Usage notes

Common phrases: iūsiūrandum dare “to swear an oath”, iūsiūrandum accipere “to take an oath, be sworn”, iūsiūrandum dēferre “to tender an oath (to an opponent)”, iūre iūrandō adigere “to bind by oath”, iūre iūrandō stāre “to keep one's oath”.^[3][7]

Döderlein distinguishes iūsiūrandum, a civil oath by which a person confirms or promises something, from sacrāmentum, the military oath, and quotes Livy on the first time soldiers were bound by an oath before the tribunes, when until then there had been only the sacrāmentum.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
9. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson