nefandus

Forms

nefandus (feminine nefanda, neuter nefandum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from the negative ne- (“not”) and fandus (“to be spoken”), the gerundive of for (“to speak”), so “not to be spoken of”; compare īnfandus (“unspeakable”).^[2][3][4][1] The TLL notes that it was also felt as a derivative of nefās (“sacrilege”).^[3][5] De Vaan derives ⟨for⟩ from Proto-Italic *fā- (“to speak”) and Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂- (“to speak”), cognate with Ancient Greek φημί (phēmí, “I say”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler gives Cicero as its first author,^[5] who addresses Clodius as ō nefanda et perniciōsa lābēs cīvitātis, “you wicked and ruinous plague of the state”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is wicked, impious or heinous, of persons, as Virgil's “it is enough to have escaped the accursed race”, of crimes, as Cicero's “so monstrous and unspeakable a crime” against the state, and of weapons and other instruments, as Virgil's “you altars and accursed swords that I fled”.^[2] Of things tainted by crime it is abominable, as Livy's “to defile themselves with accursed plunder”.^[2] Virgil's fandī atque nefandī means “right and wrong”.^[4]

Lewis and Short call it mostly post-Augustan.^[4] Church Latin glosses it “unspeakable, heinous, impious”.^[7] English nefandous was borrowed from it in the 1630s.^[8]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero of Clodius and of the Catilinarian crime.^[2][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of an accursed race and of right and wrong.^[2][4][5]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of accursed plunder.^[2][5]
• 1630s – English nefandous.^[8]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Wicked, impious, heinous (of persons, acts, weapons).^[2][4][1]
2. Abominable;^[2][4] (neuter as noun) fandī atque nefandī, right and wrong.^[2][4]
3. Unspeakable.^[7]

Related words

• īnfandus
• nefās
• for
• nefārius

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com