prodigiosus

Forms

prōdigiōsus (feminine prōdigiōsa, neuter prōdigiōsum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin prōdigium (“portent, prodigy”) + -ōsus.^[2][3][4] Wiktionary takes prōdigium to be formed from prō-, aiō (“to say”) and -ium.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Ovid on,^[5][4] meaning marvellous or unnatural, as in the wondrous halls of Circe in the Metamorphoses.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In Ovid and later poetry it meant marvellous, monstrous or unnatural.^[2][3] It became frequent with Pliny the Elder,^[5] who uses it of what has the nature of a portent, such as an eclipse of the sun, and of rites concerned with prodigies.^[2] Quintilian applies it to bodies and Statius to stars, and Tacitus has prodigiosum dictu, “marvellous to tell”.^[3] The comparative appears only late, in the Historia Augusta and Salvian.^[3][5]

In Ecclesiastical Latin it meant miraculous.^[6] English took prodigious from French and directly from Latin in the 1550s, at first meaning “ominous”.^[7]

Timeline

• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of Circe's marvellous halls.^[2][4]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of portentous eclipses.^[2][4]
• 1550s – English borrows it as prodigious.^[7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Having the nature of a prodigy, portentous.^[2]
2. Concerned with prodigies.^[2]
3. Marvellous, monstrous, unnatural.^[2][3]
4. (Ecclesiastical Latin) Miraculous.^[6]

Word family

• prōdigiōsē

Related words

• prōdigium
• English prodigious

References

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