Etymologically

nauseosus

Etymology and origin of the Latin word nauseosus

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
23/24–79 AD, Pliny the Elder
Ultimate origin
Latin nausea
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin nausea
English nausea
Latin nauseosus
English nauseous
From the same root
Latin nauseo ← nausea

Forms

nauseōsus (feminine nauseōsa, neuter nauseōsum); first/second-declension adjective[1] Also spelled nausiōsus.[1][2]

Etymology

It is from Latin nausea (“seasickness, nausea”) + -ōsus,[1][3] though Georges derives it from the verb nauseō (“to be seasick”).[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its only ancient record is in Pliny the Elder, who describes a root as “thick, moist and nauseous” (radice crassa, madida, nauseosa, Natural History 26.59),[1] in the 1st century AD.[4]

Semantic evolution

Renaissance writers used it in the opposite, passive sense, “feeling sick”: Filippo Beroaldo speaks of the queasy stomach of a weary guest, to be revived with seasonings, and Charles de Bovelles of a stomach that has become overfull and queasy.[5]

Timeline

  • 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of a root that causes nausea.[1][4]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Causing nausea, nauseous.[1][6][3]
  2. (New Latin) Feeling nausea, queasy.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  2. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  3. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
  4. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  5. ^ a b Ramminger, Johann, Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700, www.neulatein.de
  6. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press

Borrowed into

Cite this entry

“Nauseosus.” Etymologically, 24 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/la/nauseosus. Accessed 24 Oct. 2026.

Last edited on . ·