pannosus

Forms

pannōsus (feminine pannōsa, neuter pannōsum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin pannus (“cloth, rag”) + -ōsus.^[2][1] For pannus, de Vaan sees in the similar Ancient Greek πῆνος (pênos, “woven cloth”) and Old High German fano (“cloth”) borrowings from an unknown source rather than an inherited word.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero is the first to use it, in a letter to Atticus: paucī pannōsī, “a few ragged men”.^[2][4][5]

Semantic evolution

Seneca joins it with male vestītus, poorly dressed, and Juvenal speaks of a ragged aedile of empty Ulubrae.^[2][5] By likeness it meant looking like rags, flabby or wrinkled: Persius uses it of the filmy dregs of sour vinegar, Martial of withered breasts and Seneca of shrivelled leanness.^[2][6] Apuleius applies it to the poor belongings of an old woman.^[2][7] Augustine uses the plural pannōsī as a noun, the ragged, opposed to those in silk.^[7]

Medieval writers used it for threadbare clothes and ragged people;^[8] Alcuin warns that Christ should not be despised in the ragged poor man.^[8]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of ragged men.^[2][4]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca joins it with male vestītus.^[2][4]
• 34–62 AD – Persius uses it of filmy dregs.^[2][4]
• 40–102/103 AD – Martial uses it of withered breasts.^[2][4]
• 354–430 AD – Augustine uses pannōsī as a noun.^[7][4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Dressed in rags, ragged, tattered.^[2][6]
2. Looking like rags; flabby, wrinkled.^[2][6]
3. Poor, wretched.^[6][7]
4. (Late Latin, plural as noun) The ragged, the poor.^[7][8]

Word family

• pannositas

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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
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 Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b c 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