Etymologically
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praeposterus

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [prae̯ˈpɔs.tɛ.rʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [preˈpɔs.te.rus][1]

Forms

praeposterus (feminine praepostera, neuter praeposterum); first/second-declension adjective[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin prae- (“before”) + posterus (“coming after”).[2][3][1][4] Etymonline renders it literally as "before-behind".[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lucretius has praeposterus ordo, a reversed order,[5] and Köbler dates it from Cicero.[6]

Semantic evolution

It means placed in the wrong order, inverted:[2][5] Cicero wants nothing in a speech to be confused, discordant or back to front.[2] It also means happening at the wrong time, unseasonable: Pliny the Elder has figs out of season and a birth feet first, and Seneca an unseasonable cold.[5][2] Of people and conduct it is wrong-headed or absurd: Cicero says a man was always perverse and preposterous, and asks what could be said or thought more perverse and preposterous.[2][5] Sallust and Pliny the Younger use it too.[5] The adverb praeposterē means in reverse order, as Cicero of delivering letters in reverse order.[5] Stelten glosses it "absurd, inverted, preposterous".[7] English borrowed it in the 1540s as preposterous.[4]

Timeline

  • 96–55 BC – Lucretius of a reversed order.[5]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of wrong-headed people and of order in a speech.[2][5][6]
  • 86–34 BC – Sallust of absurd men.[5]
  • 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca of an unseasonable cold.[2][5]
  • 1540s – Borrowed into English as preposterous.[4]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. In the wrong order, reversed, inverted.[2][5][1][7]
  2. Out of due time, unseasonable.[2][5]
  3. (of people or conduct) Wrong-headed, perverse, absurd, preposterous.[2][5][1]

Word family

  • praeposteritas

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 i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson