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pernox

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈpɛr.nɔks][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈpɛr.noks][1]

Forms

pernox (genitive pernoctis); third-declension one-termination adjective[1]

Etymology

The OLD derives it from Latin per- + nox (“night”).[2] Wiktionary gives either the phrase ⟨per noctem⟩ “through the night” with the ending ⟨-s⟩, or a back-formation from pernoctō (“to spend the night”);[1] the TLL also suggests the back-formation, comparing exhērēs beside exhērēdō.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lewis & Short note that it is not found before the Augustan age; their first example is Virgil's Georgics, where a bull lies all night on an unstrewn bed.[4]

Semantic evolution

It means “lasting all night”, and often has the force of an adverb, “all night long”.[2][4] Livy uses luna pernox of the moon that is up the whole night, that is, the full moon, and Ovid speaks of frost gathered by the light of the full moon.[4] Pliny the Elder contrasts a moon up all night with one that rises late, Gellius pairs it with perdius “all day long”, and Juvenal has gambling go on all night.[4] Isidore explains it as “keeping watch at night”, and glosses render it with Greek words for “lasting all night” and “sleepless”.[3]

Timeline

  • 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of an animal lying out all night.[4][5]
  • 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses luna pernox of the full moon.[4][5]
  • 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of the full moon.[4][5]
  • 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of the moon.[4][5]
  • c. 165 AD – Gellius pairs it with perdius.[4][5]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Lasting through the night; often as an adverb, all night long.[2][4]
  2. Of the moon: up all night, full.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c 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 h i j k 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