malignitas

Forms

malignitās f (genitive malignitātis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin malignus (“mean, spiteful”) + -tās.^[2][3][1] De Vaan lists malignus among the derivatives of malus (“bad”), and dates both the adjective and this noun from Plautus.^[4] He follows Ernout and Meillet in tracing malus to Proto-Italic *malo- and perhaps Proto-Indo-European *mol-o- (“bad”), comparing Oscan mallom (“bad”) and Irish mell (“destruction”), but calls the etymology uncertain, since the comparable words are isolated in their branches.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has it first, in the Captivi, of stinginess: “so has he burdened all mortals with meanness towards me”.^[2][4][5]

Semantic evolution

Its first sense is stinginess or meanness, the grudging of what one has.^[2][1] From there it passed to ill will, spite and malice, the sense of Valerius Maximus, Seneca and Tacitus, who writes that a show of freedom clings to malice.^[2][6] Seneca the Younger also uses it of an inherent badness of nature that a man overcomes.^[2] Lewis & Short note that Cicero and Caesar avoid it.^[6] Church Latin uses it broadly for evil, malice and wickedness.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of meanness in the Captivi.^[2][5]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca the Younger of inborn badness of character.^[2][5]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus of malice that passes itself off as frankness.^[6][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Stinginess, niggardliness, meanness.^[2][1]
2. Ill will, spite, malice, envy.^[2][6][1]
3. Inherent badness, malignancy.^[2]
4. (Ecclesiastical Latin) Evil, wickedness, vice.^[7]

Usage notes

Döderlein distinguishes it from malitia, baseness that shows itself in lying and deceit: malignitas grudges good to another and wants it only for oneself, while malevolentia wishes evil to another.^[8]

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. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper