Etymologically
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lutulentus

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ɫʊ.tʊˈɫɛn.tʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [lu.tuˈlɛn.tus][1]

Forms

lutulentus (feminine lutulenta, neuter lutulentum); first/second-declension adjective[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin lutum (“mud”) + -ulentus.[2][1][3] Gellius discusses how words in ⟨-ulentus⟩ such as this one are formed.[3] De Vaan traces lutum to Proto-Italic *luto- and Proto-Indo-European *l(H)u-to- (“dirt”), with cognates such as Old Irish loth (“dirt”) and Ancient Greek λύθρον (lúthron, “gore, clotted blood”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus uses it first,[5] in the Bacchides of filthy mire, and in the Captivi of men whom greed has made filthy.[2]

Semantic evolution

It means full of mud, muddy: Horace has a mud-bedaubed pig, Ovid the earth muddy from the recent flood and a turbid river, Martial a muddy mule.[6] It also means stained and dirty: a fragment of Cicero, quoted by Quintilian, has a floor filthy and muddy with wine,[2] and Martial uses it of someone smeared with ointment from the wrestling ground.[6] Figuratively it is morally filthy or of bad repute, as in Plautus' Captivi.[2] Plautus has the comparative; the superlative is not found.[3]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of mire and of filthy men.[2][5]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of a floor muddy with wine.[2]
  • 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid of the earth muddy after the flood.[6]
  • 40–102/103 AD – Martial of a muddy mule.[6]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Full of mud, muddy, miry;[2][6][1] (of a river) turbid.[2][6][1]
  2. Stained, dirty; smeared (with oil or ointment).[2][6]
  3. (figurative) Morally filthy, of bad repute.[2][6][1]

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 i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press