procellosus

Forms

procellōsus (feminine procellōsa, neuter procellōsum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin procella (“violent wind, storm”) + -ōsus (“full of”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan takes procella as probably derived from prōcellō (“to throw violently forward”), a compound of the verb ⟨-cellō⟩ found only in compounds, which goes back to Proto-Italic *kelne/o- and Proto-Indo-European *-kel-n-h₂-e/o- (“to beat”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL records it from Ovid on,^[3] who has vows carried off over the sea by the procelloso Noto, “the squally south wind”.^[2][3][5] Lewis and Short think it perhaps not older than Augustus.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In Ovid, Livy and the younger Seneca it describes winds, clouds and hail that bring gales, and so means storm-raising, violent.^[2][3][7] Of seas, seasons and the state of the sky it means full of storms: Livy has ver procellosum, Columella sets a stormy and rainy sky against a calm one, and Valerius Flaccus has a stormy sea.^[6][7][3] The TLL finds it from Ovid on in poetry, in Livy and in the younger Seneca, and more often in Augustine,^[3] who uses the superlative procellosissimum pelagus and speaks figuratively of a life and an age troubled as if by storms.^[6][7] Augustine also has the adverb procellōsē, boisterously.^[6] In medieval British writers it is used of stormy seas and gales and, figuratively, of the storms of worldly affairs, and also means turbulent, of a river.^[8]

Timeline

• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of the squally south wind.^[2][5]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy has winds subiti ac procellosi and a stormy spring.^[2][6][5]
• 354–430 AD – Augustine has the superlative and figurative uses of a stormy life.^[6][7][5]
• 672 – Aldhelm writes of a ship ploughing the stormy sea.^[8]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Full of gales, squally, stormy.^[2][6]
2. Of winds, clouds and the like, raising storms, violent.^[2][7]
3. (Late Latin) Figuratively, troubled, turbulent, of life or the world.^[7][8]

Related words

• procella
• percellō

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f 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 c d 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
7. ^ a b c d e f Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b c Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press