nasutus

Forms

nāsūtus (feminine nāsūta, neuter nāsūtum, adverb nāsūtē); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin nāsus (“nose”) + -ūtus,^[2][1][3] formed like aurītus “long-eared” and cornūtus “horned”.^[3] The grammarian Priscian already derived it from ⟨nāsus⟩.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lucilius is the first to use it, of a man with a big nose: nōn magnus homō est, nāsūtus, macellus, “he is not a big man, long-nosed, skinny”.^[2][3][4]

Semantic evolution

Horace uses it of a woman's looks,^[3][5] and Cassiodorus calls the elephant's trunk its nāsūta manus.^[5][6] From the idea of a keen nose it came to mean sharp-witted, and above all satirical or sneering:^[2][3] the elder Seneca calls the rhetorician Cestius homō nāsūtissimus,^[2] and Martial tells someone who wants to seem witty that he likes a sharp nose, not a polyp: nāsūtum volō, nōlō polypōsum.^[5] Phaedrus has the adverb nāsūtē of a critic who picks his writings to pieces.^[5]

Medieval writers kept the plain sense of a large nose,^[7] and John of Garland has nāsūtī equitēs in the train of the lord of hell, probably of sneering knights.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 180–102 BC – Lucilius describes a long-nosed, skinny man.^[2][4]
• 65–8 BC – Horace uses it of a woman.^[3][4]
• c. 15 BC–c. 50 AD – Phaedrus uses the adverb of a sneering critic.^[5][4]
• 40–102/103 AD – Martial uses it of wit.^[5][4]
• c. 485–c. 580 AD – Cassiodorus uses it of an elephant's trunk.^[5][4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Having a large or long nose.^[2][5]
2. Witty, sharp; satirical, sneering.^[2][5][3]

Word family

• nāsūtē

Related words

• nāsus

References

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