principatus

Forms

prīncipātus m (genitive prīncipātūs); fourth declension^[2] A neuter prīncipātum also occurs.^[3]

Etymology

It is formed from prīnceps (“first, chief”) with the suffix -ātus.^[2][1][3] ⟨Prīnceps⟩ is formed from prīmus (“first”) and ⟨-ceps⟩, from capiō (“to take”).^[2][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler gives Cicero as its first author.^[4] In the Philippics Cicero says someone had given Antony the leadership of his bandits.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is first place, leadership, pre-eminence, and then supremacy in the state: Cicero speaks of giving Cassius domination and the first place.^[2] Under the empire it is the position of the Roman prīnceps, the system of the principate (Tacitus: Nerva joined the principate and liberty), the reign of one emperor, and the imperial government (Pliny the Younger).^[2] In philosophy Cicero uses it for the Greek ἡγεμονικόν (hēgemonikón, “ruling part”), the governing part of a nature, as the mind in man, and once for a beginning in time.^[2][5]

Church Latin glosses it “public office, rule, dominion, sovereignty”.^[6] In Medieval Latin it is rule, imperial or royal rule, and an empire.^[7] Wiktionary gives Late Latin “sovereignty, principality”.^[1]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero of leadership, supremacy and the ruling part of the soul.^[2][4]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus of the principate.^[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. First place, leadership, pre-eminence.^[2][1][5]
2. Supremacy in the state; the principate; the reign of an emperor; the imperial government.^[2][1][6]
3. (philosophy) The governing part, ruling principle.^[2]
4. A beginning.^[2]
5. (Late and Medieval Latin) Rule, sovereignty; a principality, an empire.^[1][7]

Related words

• prīnceps
• prīncipium
• prīncipālis

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill