malitia

Forms

malitia f (genitive malitiae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from malus (“bad”) with the suffix -ia.^[2][3][4] De Vaan, following Ernout and Meillet, tentatively traces ⟨malus⟩ to Proto-Italic *malo- and Proto-Indo-European *mol-o- (“bad”), comparing Oscan mallom (“bad”), Old Irish mell (“destruction”), Ancient Greek μέλεος (méleos, “idle, unhappy”) and Lithuanian mẽlas (“lie”); since these words are isolated in their branches, he finds it uncertain.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus,^[4] who has “I have always thought you a citizen without any vice” in the Aulularia;^[2] Köbler gives Ennius.^[5]

Semantic evolution

It is wicked character, disposition or conduct, and a single vice or fault, and in the jurist Celsus a malicious act.^[2][6] Cicero preferred vitiōsitās to it for the opposite of virtue, and defined it as the crafty and deceitful art of doing harm.^[6][3] It is ill will, spite and malice, and also cunning or artfulness; in late writers such as Palladius it is the bad quality of a thing, as poor soil or an unfruitful tree.^[6][1]

Church Latin glosses it “malice, spite, ill will, cunning, evil”.^[7] In medieval Latin it also meant misfortune or affliction, of sin or sinfulness, and of a crime.^[8] Döderlein separates it, the baseness of lying and deceit, from malignitās, which grudges others their good, and malevolentia, ill will.^[9] English malice (about 1300) comes from it through Old French.^[10]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of vices and faults.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero defines it as crafty harm.^[3][5]
• c. 1300 – English malice comes from it through Old French.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. Wickedness, bad character; a vice, fault.^[2][6][1][7]
2. Ill will, spite, malice; a malicious act.^[2][6][1][7]
3. Cunning, artfulness.^[1][7]
4. (Late Latin) Bad quality, badness (of soil, a tree).^[6][1]
5. (Medieval Latin) Misfortune, affliction; sin; a crime.^[8]

Word family

• malitiōsus

Related words

• malitās
• malitiōsē
• malitiōsitās
• malus
• malignitās
• malevolentia
• English malice

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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. ^ 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
9. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
10. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com