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praeteritus

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Etymology and origin of the Latin word praeteritus

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
96–55 BC, Lucretius
Ultimate origin
Proto-Indo-European (*h₁ei-)

Pronunciation

  • Classical: [prae̯ˈtɛ.rɪ.tʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [preˈtɛː.ri.tus][1]

Forms

praeteritus (feminine praeterita, neuter praeteritum); first/second-declension adjective[1]

Etymology

It is the participle of praetereō (“to go past, pass by”), used as an adjective.[2][1] The verb is praeter (“past, beyond”) with eō (“to go”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *ei- and Proto-Indo-European *h₁ei- (“to go”).[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Lucretius,[3] who speaks of “the time now past”.[2]

Semantic evolution

It is past, bygone or former, as Cicero's “the hope of future benefit helps more than the memory of a past favour”, and as a neuter noun the past, as Cicero's beast that has little sense of past or future and Tacitus' in praeteritum, for the past.[2][1] It is also just past, last, as Juvenal's friend with whom one dined last night.[2] In grammar it is the past tense, as Varro's three tenses, past, present and future.[2]

Church Latin glosses it “gone by, past and gone, departed”, and the neuter plural as “the past, bygone times or things”.[4]

Timeline

  • 96–55 BC – Lucretius of past time.[2][5]
  • 116–27 BC – Varro of the past tense.[2][5]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of past favours and of the past.[2][5]
  • c. 67–c. 127 AD – Juvenal of last night.[2][5]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Past, bygone, former.[2][1][4]
  2. Just past, last.[2]
  3. (grammar) Past, preterite.[2]

Noun

  1. (neuter) The past, bygone things.[2][4]

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 k l m Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ 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
  4. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  5. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
Cite this entry

“Praeteritus.” Etymologically, 19 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/la/praeteritus. Accessed 19 Oct. 2026.

Last edited on . ·