Etymologically
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praealtus

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [prae̯ˈaɫ.tʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [preˈal.tus][1]

Forms

praealtus (feminine praealta, neuter praealtum); first/second-declension adjective[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin prae- (“very”) + altus (“high, deep”).[2][3][1] De Vaan traces altus to Proto-Italic *alto- (“high”) and perhaps Proto-Indo-European *h₂el-to-; he notes that it looks like the participle of alō (“to feed”), although the meanings are hard to connect.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL reads it only in prose, from the Bellum Africum and Sallust on,[3] and Köbler dates it from the Bellum Africum,[5] where a ridge rising from the sea is described as not so very high.[2]

Semantic evolution

It means very high: Livy has very high cliffs, and Pliny the Elder the high flight of birds.[6][2] It also means very deep, of water: Sallust has bays that are very deep near the land, Livy the mouth of a very deep river, and Pliny the Elder a deep sea.[2][6] The TLL finds it frequent in Livy, Curtius Rufus and Pliny the Elder;[3] Lewis & Short note that Cicero and Caesar do not use it.[6] A comparative occurs only by conjecture, in Martianus Capella, and there is no superlative.[3]

Timeline

  • late 1st century BC – The Bellum Africum of a ridge.[2][5]
  • 86–34 BC – Sallust of deep bays.[2]
  • 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of high cliffs and a deep river.[6]
  • 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder of the flight of birds and a deep sea.[6]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Very high, lofty.[2][6][1]
  2. Very deep.[2][6][1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press