latebrosus

Forms

latebrōsus (feminine latebrōsa, neuter latebrōsum, comparative latebrōsior); first/second-declension adjective^[2] The second syllable is short; the TLL finds it long only in Prudentius and the Carmen de resurrectione.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is from Latin latebra (“hiding place”) + -ōsus.^[2][3][1] latebra comes from lateō (“to lie hidden”);^[2] de Vaan explains its short ⟨e⟩ by analogy with tenebrae (“darkness”).^[4] He takes lateō as a stative verb made from an adjective “hidden”, from Proto-Indo-European *lh2-to- (“hidden”).^[4] Cognate with Ancient Greek λανθάνω (lanthánō, “to be hidden”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and the TLL record it from Plautus,^[4][3] who in the Bacchides says that a secret place does not suit this time of life: huic aetati non conducit latebrosus locus.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It means full of hiding places, giving cover, secret: Cicero speaks of a more secluded way by which someone came to watch, and Livy and Lucan use it of places and of the secret hours of night.^[2][5] Virgil has nests in a pumice full of hollows, latebroso in pumice,^[2] and Church Latin also glosses it full of holes, porous.^[6] It also means lurking or hidden: Virgil has the hidden streams of a river's sources, Seneca a lurking serpent, and Statius the hidden lair of a nymph.^[2] Ammianus Marcellinus uses it of hidden roads and places.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, of a secret place.^[2][3][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of a secluded way.^[2][7]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil, of porous pumice and hidden streams.^[2][7]
• c. 390 AD – Ammianus Marcellinus, of hidden roads.^[5][7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Full of hiding places, giving concealment, secret, secluded.^[2][5][1]
2. Lurking, hidden.^[2][1]
3. Full of holes, porous.^[6][2]

Related words

• latebra
• lateō

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e 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 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
7. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de