mandatus

Forms

mandātus m (genitive mandātūs); fourth declension^[1][2] In Classical Latin it is found only in the dative and ablative singular.^[1][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin mandō¹ (“to entrust, command”) + -tus, an action noun of the fourth declension.^[1][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero has mandātū Caesenniae, “on Caesennia's instructions”, in the Pro Caecina.^[2][1][4]

Semantic evolution

It is a charge, order or commission, used mostly in the ablative mandātū “by order of”, as in Cicero, Suetonius and the jurists;^[2][1] Apuleius has the dative.^[3]

In Medieval Latin Niermeyer records mandātus as a noun for a substitute or agent acting with another's authority,^[5] and Köbler finds it in a charter of 1195.^[4]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses mandātū “by order of”.^[2][1][4]
• c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius uses it of a praetor's order.^[2][4]
• 1195 – Found in a charter.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. An order, command, charge;^[1][2] mandātū, by order of.^[1][2]
2. (Medieval Latin) A substitute, an agent acting on another's behalf.^[5]

Related words

• mandātum

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
4. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill