mendosus

Pronunciation

• Classical: [mɛnˈdoː.sʊs]^[1]
• Ecclesiastical: [menˈdɔː.s̬us]^[1]

Forms

mendōsus (feminine mendōsa, neuter mendōsum, superlative mendōsissimus); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin mendum (“fault, blemish”) + -ōsus (“full of”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *m(e)ndo- for mendum; if Old Irish mind (“sign, mark”) is cognate, beside mennar (“blemish”), it is an Italo-Celtic word, and he mentions only as theoretical possibilities a derivation from Proto-Indo-European *mn- (“to think”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler records it first in Cicero,^[5] who writes in De oratore that both to lack a part and to have too much is mendosum, “faulty”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Its basic sense is full of faults or blemishes: Ovid uses it of the face of a horse with blemishes, and Pliny the Younger of a faulty copy of a will.^[2][6][7] Cicero complains that funeral eulogies have made Roman history mendosior, more full of errors.^[2][7] Horace and Ovid apply it to character and morals with faults.^[2][7] Cicero also uses it actively, of a slave who always made a mistake at the same place in the name Verrucius.^[2][7] By confusion with mendāx it comes to mean lying, deceitful, as in Apuleius' mendoso risu, “with a false laugh”.^[2] Augustine complains of being worn out by very faulty manuscripts.^[7] Medieval writers in Britain use it of faulty copies of texts, of people prone to falsehood, and in a glossary of what is stained or dirty;^[8] Niermeyer gives the medieval sense fallacious, deceptive.^[9]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of what is faulty and of a clerk who makes mistakes.^[2][5]
• 65–8 BC – Horace applies it to a character with a few faults.^[2][5]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of a blemished face and of faulty morals.^[2][5]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius uses it in the sense lying, deceitful.^[2][5]
• 354–430 AD – Augustine uses it of faulty manuscripts.^[7][5]
• Medieval Latin – It is used of faulty copies of texts and of untruthful people.^[8][9]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Full of faults or blemishes, faulty; of statements and texts, incorrect, erroneous.^[2][6]
2. Of character, full of moral faults.^[7]
3. Making mistakes, prone to error.^[2][7]
4. Lying, deceitful (by confusion with mendāx).^[2][9]
5. (Medieval Latin) Stained, dirty.^[8]

Word family

• mendositas

Usage notes

Persius uses the neuter as an adverb: mendosum tinniat, “ring false”, of brass under gold.^[2][7]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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. ^ 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 e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b c Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill