nefastus

Forms

nefāstus (feminine nefāsta, neuter nefāstum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ne- + fāstus¹ (“lawful, (of days) open for business”).^[2][3] The TLL notes that one would expect ⟨in-fāstus⟩ and explains the ⟨ne-⟩ by the influence of nefās (“offence against divine law”), although that noun is not found before Accius;^[3] Wiktionary derives the adjective from it directly.^[1] De Vaan derives fāstus from fās (“divine law, what is right”), which he traces through Proto-Italic *faos to Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂-os (“saying, utterance”): the noun survived in the phrase ⟨fās est⟩, “the saying exists”, hence “it is right”.^[4] Ancient writers derived it from fārī (“to speak”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler record it first in Plautus,^[4][5] in a joke about the calendar: istōrum nūllus nefāstust: comitiālēs sunt merī, “none of these is nefastus: they are pure assembly days”.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

Its core sense is contrary to divine law: a law in Cicero's De legibus voids whatever an augur declares nefāsta,^[2] a text Lewis and Short assign to the Twelve Tables.^[6] Livy uses it of a land forbidden to a victory, and Pliny the Elder of offering the gods wine from a vine struck by lightning.^[2] Of days it names those unfit for public business: Varro explains that on them the praetor may not speak the words dō, dīcō, addīcō, and Livy says Numa made days nefāstī and fāstī.^[2][6] Paul's epitome of Festus says such days were marked with the letter N.^[6]

From this it came to mean unlucky or inauspicious: Horace tells a tree that it was planted on an ill-omened day, and Tacitus and Suetonius report that Agrippina's birthday was put among the nefāstī.^[2][6] Later it means abominable or dreadful, as in Statius' Acheronte nefāstō and in Apuleius.^[2] The neuter nefāstum is used as a noun for a wicked deed, by Horace and Pliny.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus jokes on it as a calendar term.^[2][5]
• 116–27 BC – Varro explains the diēs nefāstī.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of what an augur declares forbidden.^[2][5]
• 65–8 BC – Horace uses it of an unlucky day.^[2][5]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy says Numa made days nefāstī.^[2][5]
• c. 45–96 AD – Statius uses it of the dreadful Acheron.^[2][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Contrary to divine law, forbidden, impious.^[2][6]
2. Of days, on which courts and assemblies could not be held, unfit for public business.^[2][6]
3. Inauspicious, unlucky.^[6]
4. Abominable, dreadful, wicked.^[2][6]

Word family

• nefastum

Related words

• fās
• nefās
• fāstus¹
• nefārius

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
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 f g 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