meracus

Forms

merācus (feminine merāca, neuter merācum, superlative merācissimus); first/second-declension adjective^[1] It has a comparative merācior and a superlative merācissimus.^[2][1] Manuscripts of medical writers often spell it merātus, apparently a scribal error.^[3]

Etymology

It is from Latin merus + -ācus,^[2][1] formed like ebriacus (“drunk”).^[2][3] The adjective merus (“pure, unmixed”) goes back to Proto-Italic *mero- and Proto-Indo-European *merH-o- (“remaining, pure”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero has it first, of wine taken less diluted: in On the Nature of the Gods a doctor knows that a patient told to drink wine will take it too strong.^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

Its proper use is of drinks, above all wine, taken neat or little mixed; the medical writers, from Celsus on, use it often.^[3][6] Horace and Persius apply it to undiluted hellebore,^[6] and figuratively Cicero speaks of a people that drank a liberty too undiluted.^[6][7] Late writers used it of anything pure, Augustine of the lust for power and Sidonius of a very pure fountain of knowledge.^[8] The adverb merācē is post-Augustan.^[6]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of wine and, figuratively, of liberty.^[3][6][5]
• 65–8 BC – Horace uses it of hellebore.^[6][5]
• 14–37 AD – Celsus prescribes wine more or less undiluted.^[3][5]
• c. 431–486 AD – Sidonius Apollinaris writes of a very pure fountain of knowledge.^[6][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Undiluted, neat, of wine and other drinks.^[2][6]
2. Pure, unadulterated, of drugs and other substances.^[6][8]
3. (figurative) Unmixed, unrestrained.^[6][8]

Word family

• merāculus

Usage notes

The TLL quotes a late grammarian's distinction: merum is the pure liquid by itself, merācum something mixed, that is, wine strong but not wholly unmixed.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn