montuosus

Forms

montuōsus (feminine montuōsa, neuter montuōsum); first/second-declension adjective^[1] The contracted form montōsus is used in dactylic verse from Virgil on.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin mōns (“mountain”) + -ōsus (“full of”).^[3][2][1] The ending ⟨-uōsus⟩ was taken from adjectives such as virtuōsus,^[1] and the TLL compares saltuōsus (“wooded”).^[2] The noun mōns goes back to Proto-Italic *monti- and Proto-Indo-European *mon-ti- (“protrusion, height”);^[4] its cognates include Welsh mynydd (“mountain”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero has it first,^[5] asking whether places are flat or mountainous.^[3][6]

Semantic evolution

Caesar describes rough and mountainous country with it,^[3][2] and Pliny the Elder uses it of provinces and, as a neuter plural noun, of the mountainous parts of Pamphylia and Cilicia.^[3] Pliny also calls a tree that grows in the mountains montuosa.^[3] In verse Virgil uses the shorter montosus.^[3][2]

Medieval British writers use it of hilly country, such as the steep road from Jaffa to Jerusalem, and in a transferred sense of things of mountainous size, such as whales.^[7]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of mountainous places.^[3][5]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar uses it of rough country.^[3][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses the form montosus.^[3][5]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of mountain plants and of mountainous regions.^[3][5]
• 1251 – An English inquisition describes land as montuosa.^[7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Mountainous, hilly;^[3][6][7] (neuter plural as a noun) mountainous regions.^[3][6][7]
2. (of plants) Growing in the mountains.^[3]
3. (Medieval Latin) Of mountainous size.^[7]

Related words

• montānus

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e 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