Etymologically
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montuosus

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [mɔn.tuˈoː.sʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [mon.tuˈɔː.s̬us][1]

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]

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