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pelagus

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Etymology and origin of the Latin word pelagus

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
220–130 BC, Pacuvius
Borrowed from
Ancient Greek πέλαγος
Ultimate origin
Ancient Greek (πέλαγος)

Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈpɛ.ɫa.ɡʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈpɛː.la.ɡus][1]

Forms

pelagus n (genitive pelagī); second declension[1] Lucretius has the Greek plural pelagē.[2][3] Vitruvius has an accusative pelagum.[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek πέλαγος (pélagos, “sea, open sea”).[2][3][1] The origin of the Greek word is unclear;[4] Köbler refers it to Pokorny's root Proto-Indo-European *plāk- (“broad, flat”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pacuvius, quoted by Cicero: fervit aestū pelagus, “the sea boils with the swell”.[2][3][4]

Semantic evolution

It is the sea, a poetic word that post-Augustan prose also used instead of mare.[3] It is used with names of seas (Lucilius: where Rhodes slopes into the open Carpathian sea) and of the open, deep sea, as ships put to sea with oars (Bellum Hispaniense).[2] Virgil uses it of the sea's water itself, flooding the fields.[2] Döderlein explains that mare is the sea as a mass of water, while aequor and pelagus refer to its wide surface.[5]

Church Latin glosses it “sea, ocean, the deep”.[6] In medieval Latin it was also the water of a river or lake.[7]

Timeline

  • 220–130 BC – Pacuvius of a seething sea.[2][4]
  • c. 180–102 BC – Lucilius of the Carpathian sea.[2][4]
  • 70–19 BC – Virgil of sea-water flooding the land.[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The sea; the open sea, the deep.[2][1][6]
  2. (poetic) Sea-water.[2]
  3. (Medieval Latin) The water of a river or lake.[7]

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 k Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  5. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
  6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  7. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Pelagus.” Etymologically, 18 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/la/pelagus. Accessed 19 Oct. 2026.

Last edited on . ·