Etymologically
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latebrosus

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Pronunciation

  • Ecclesiastical: [la.teˈbrɔː.s̬us][1]

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]

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