mollicellus

Forms

mollicellus (feminine mollicella, neuter mollicellum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is a diminutive from Latin molliculus (“soft, tender”) with the suffix -ellus,^[2][3][1] and so goes back to mollis “soft”.^[1][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its only classical instance is in Catullus, who speaks of “soft little hands” (manusque mollicellas).^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

It means soft, tender or delicate, a word of poetry.^[2][4] The TLL records a Romanian descendant, Romanian molicel “rather soft”.^[3]

Timeline

• 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus uses it of soft little hands.^[3][6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Soft, tender, delicate.^[2][4][5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
6. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de