Etymologically
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perditus

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perditus1 ruined, desperate

Forms

perditus, perdita, perditum (comparative perditior, superlative perditissimus)[1]

Etymology

The adjective is from Latin perdō (“to destroy, lose”), its perfect passive participle.[1][2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus uses it of people who are ruined or “done for”, as in “misere perditus”, wretchedly lost, in the Aulularia, and of someone lost in love in the Miles gloriosus.[1][3]

Semantic evolution

Pacuvius uses it of someone broken by filth and sleeplessness, and Cicero of men ruined by debt.[1][4] It also described desperate situations (rēs perditae).[1][4] It also meant morally depraved: Cicero addresses a man as the most abandoned of all mortals, perditissime.[1] Georges and Gaffiot add an “excessive, unbridled” sense,[5][4] as in Catullus' amor perditus.[4]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of people ruined or lost in love.[1][3]
  • 220–130 BC – Pacuvius uses it of someone broken by misery.[1][3]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of the ruined and the depraved.[1][3]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Broken, debilitated (by illness or misfortune); financially ruined, bankrupt.[1][4]
  2. (of persons) Lost, ‘done for’, in despair; lost in love.[1][5]
  3. (of situations) desperate, hopeless.[1][4]
  4. Morally depraved, abandoned.[1][2]
  5. Excessive, unbridled.[5][4]
  6. No longer possessed, lost.[1]

perditus2 ruination

Forms

perditus m (genitive perditūs); fourth declension[1][5]

Etymology

The noun is from Latin perdō, with the suffix -tus.[1][6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has it in the Cistellaria, in the dative beside praedātuī: someone holds a family and its property “for ruin and plunder”.[6][7]

Semantic evolution

It is rare: after Plautus the TLL cites only the De aleatoribus ascribed to Cyprian, which speaks of the loss of huge sums at the gaming table.[6][5]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it in the Cistellaria.[6][3]
  • 5th century AD (?) – Pseudo-Cyprian uses it of losses at dice.[6][3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Ruination, destruction; loss.[1][6][5]
  • English perdition

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  2. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
  5. ^ a b c d e f Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  6. ^ a b c d e f Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  7. ^ 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