Etymologically
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mandatus

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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]

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