mundo

Forms

mundō (present infinitive mundāre, perfect active mundāvī, supine mundātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin mundus¹ (“clean, neat”) + -ō.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it once in the Moretum, a poem of the second half of the 1st century BC, where a place is cleaned beforehand.^[3][4][5]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Latin it is rare: Columella tells the housekeeper to have the mangers cleaned,^[4][6] and Pliny the Elder speaks of cleaning with soda.^[6] It became frequent in the Bible and in Church writers, from Minucius Felix and Tertullian on.^[3] The Vulgate uses it of ritual purification under the Law of Moses, as of the Levites,^[6] and of cleansing from sin: ab occultīs meīs mundā mē, “cleanse me from my hidden faults”.^[6] The leper healed by Jesus is told mundāre, “be made clean”, in the Gospels.^[3] Jerome uses it of picking over vegetables,^[4] and Augustine has the comparative of the participle, mundātior “cleaner”.^[6]

It lives on in Italian mondare, French monder, Spanish mondar and Portuguese mondar.^[3]

Timeline

• 2nd half of the 1st century BC – The Moretum uses it of cleaning a place.^[3][4][5]
• 1st century AD – Columella uses it of cleaning mangers.^[4][5]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of cleaning with soda.^[6][5]
• c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian uses it.^[3][5]
• 390–406 AD – The Vulgate uses it of cleansing from sin.^[6][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make clean or tidy, to clean.^[2][6]
2. (Ecclesiastical Latin) To cleanse ritually, purify.^[6][7]
3. (Ecclesiastical Latin) To cleanse from sin.^[6][4]

Word family

• commundō
• ēmundō
• immundabilis
• mundātiō
• mundator
• mundatrix
• permundō
• praemundatus
• remundō

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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. ^ a b c d e f Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
5. ^ a b c d e f 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. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson