redivivus

Forms

redivīvus (feminine redivīva, neuter redivīvum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is apparently from Latin redivia (“hangnail”), a form of reduvia (“loose piece of skin round the nail”), with the suffix -īvus.^[2][3] De Vaan lists it beside that noun among the derivatives of -uō (“to put on”) (as in exuō and induō), which goes back to Proto-Italic *ow-e/o- and Proto-Indo-European *h₃eu-e/o- (“to adorn, wear”).^[3] The TLL also compares the noun and gives its first sense as “worn, used, left over”.^[4]

Georges and Wiktionary analyse it instead as red- and vīvus (“alive”), the sense it took in Late Latin.^[5][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in a building contract that Cicero quotes in the Verrines, where the contractor is to keep the redivīva, the old materials, and in Cicero's own remark that a column was made new with no reused stone.^[4][6][7]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Latin it was a builders' word for materials used a second time:^[2][6] Catullus has a little bridge standing on reused planks, and Vitruvius contrasts reused rubble with new.^[4][5] Festus explains it as something renewed from old.^[4]

Later it was taken to mean “renewed”: Ammianus speaks of wars that flare up again and of reappearing debts, and Corippus of renewed praise.^[5][7] Prudentius applies it to Christ come back to life,^[6][5][7] and in Ecclesiastical Latin it means “living again”.^[8] Glossaries render it with Greek παλίνζωος (palínzōos), and manuscripts often confuse it with recidīvus.^[4] It survives in redivivo and redivivo, and English has borrowed redivivus.^[1]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of reused building stone.^[2][4][9]
• 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus writes of a bridge on reused planks.^[4][9]
• c. 84–c. 25 BC – Vitruvius contrasts reused rubble with new.^[4][9]
• 348/49–c. 413 AD – Prudentius uses it of Christ restored to life.^[6][9]
• c. 390 AD – Ammianus uses it of wars renewed.^[5][9]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Used again, second-hand (of building materials);^[2][6] (neuter as noun) reused materials.^[5][7]
2. (Late Latin) Renewed, revived.^[5][7]
3. (Late Latin) Restored to life, living again.^[6][8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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 d e f g h Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d e f g Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
6. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
9. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de