qualiter

Forms

quāliter (not comparable)^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin quālis (“of what kind”) + -ter.^[2][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler records it first in Tibullus.^[3] Ovid uses it in a comparison: lacrimae flūxēre per ōra, quāliter abiectā dē nive mānat aqua, “tears flowed down the face, as water trickles from snow thrown aside”.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

In the 1st century AD it is used as a relative “as, just as”, often to introduce a simile, and as an interrogative or exclamatory “how”, in Columella, Pliny the Elder, Martial and Statius.^[2][4] The jurists of the Digest repeat it as quāliter quāliter, “in whatever way”.^[4]

In Medieval Latin it also served as a conjunction, “that”, “so that” and “in order that”.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 55–19/18 BC – Tibullus uses it.^[3]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it to introduce a comparison.^[2][3]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it in direct questions.^[2][3]
• 40–102/103 AD – Martial uses it in exclamations.^[2][3]

Meanings

Adverb

1. (interrogative) In what manner? how?^[2][4]
2. (exclamatory) In how fine a way!^[2]
3. (relative) In which manner, as, just as, introducing a simile.^[2][4]
4. Introducing a new sentence: so, in this way.^[2]
5. According as.^[2]
6. (law) In which state or condition.^[2]
7. quāliter quāliter: in whatever way, however.^[4]

Conjunction

1. (Medieval Latin) That; so that; in order that.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill