mendicitas

Forms

mendīcitās f (genitive mendīcitātis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin mendīcus (“beggarly; beggar”) + -tās.^[2][3][1] The OLD derives mendīcus from mendum (“fault, blemish”),^[2] which de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *m(e)ndo-; if Old Irish mind (“sign, mark”) is cognate, the word is shared by Italic and Celtic.^[4] Cognate with Old Irish mennar (“blemish”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and the TLL record it from Plautus,^[4][3] who in the Menaechmi speaks of people who hurry to thrust themselves into beggary: ad mendicitatem se properent detrudere.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is the condition of a beggar, destitution:^[2] Cicero contrasts men who owned vast wealth with one in utter beggary, and speaks of “poverty, or rather want and beggary”.^[2][5] Seneca and Apuleius use it too.^[2] In the declamations ascribed to Quintilian it is the act of begging.^[2] The TLL finds the plural from Tertullian.^[3] In Church Latin it is want, poverty.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, of beggary.^[2][3][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of utter destitution.^[2][7]
• c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian has the plural.^[3][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. The condition of a beggar, beggary, destitution.^[2][5][1]
2. The act of begging.^[2]
3. (Ecclesiastical Latin) Want, poverty.^[6]

Related words

• mendīcus
• mendīcō
• mendum

Usage notes

Döderlein ranks it as the extreme among the words for poverty: paupertās is narrow means, inopia and egestās are want that is felt, and mendīcitās is absolute poverty that forces one to beg.^[8] The pauper has little, the inops too little, and the mendīcus nothing at all.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
8. ^ a b Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper