miserabilis

Forms

miserābilis (neuter miserābile, comparative miserābilior); third-declension two-termination adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from miseror (“to pity”) with the suffix -bilis.^[2][3][1] The verb comes from miser (“wretched”), which de Vaan derives from Proto-Italic *misro-; it may be connected with maereō (“to grieve”), but no acceptable Proto-Indo-European origin has been found.^[4][5] Isidore explained it as “apt for misery”.^[3][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler gives Cicero as its first author,^[5] who writes that “nothing is so pitiable as a man who has fallen from happiness into misery” and uses it of a voice inflected to sound pitiable.^[7][2]

Semantic evolution

Of persons it is deserving or exciting pity, pitiable or pathetic, and of acts and words pitiful, as Cicero's “voice bent to a pitiful sound”.^[2][7] Of conditions and events it is wretched or lamentable, as Cicero's “pitiful ignorance of the truth”.^[2] It is also pitifully small or mean, as Lucan's poor tomb with no inscriptions.^[2]

English miserable comes from it, partly through Old French, from the early 15th century.^[8]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero of the pitiable fall from happiness.^[7][2][5]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy has the comparative.^[3][5]
• early 15th century – English miserable.^[8]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Pitiable, pathetic;^[2][7][1] (of the voice) plaintive.^[2][7][1]
2. Wretched, lamentable, miserable.^[2][7][1]
3. Pitifully small, mean.^[2]

Word family

• immiserābilis

Related words

• miser
• miseror
• misericordia
• maereō
• English miserable

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911).
7. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com