redundantia

Forms

redundantia f (genitive redundantiae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin redundāns (“overflowing”) + -ia,^[1][2] from the present participle of redundō (“to overflow”).^[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero uses it once, in the Orator, of the youthful exuberance of his own speech for Roscius: illa pro Roscio iuvenilis redundantia “that youthful overflow in the speech for Roscius”.^[4][3][5]

Semantic evolution

Vitruvius uses it four times; after him it returns only with Apuleius and Tertullian, and always in prose.^[4] In Vitruvius it is a backward flow,^[2] and Apuleius uses it of an excessive flow, saying that the spleen lies next to the liver to relieve its surplus.^[2] Tertullian writes of an overflowing of kindness,^[3] and Augustine of a speaker who flows on to excess rather than stopping at what is enough.^[4]

In medieval British Latin Aldhelm uses it of the flowing back of a spring, and later texts use it for the redounding of an action or effect on something else.^[6]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero speaks of the youthful exuberance of his early style.^[4][3][5]
• c. 84–c. 25 BC – Vitruvius uses it of a backward flow.^[2][5]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius uses it of an excessive flow in the body.^[2][5]
• c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian writes of an overflowing of kindness.^[3][5]
• 639–709 AD – Aldhelm uses it of the flowing back of a spring.^[6][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A backward flow, reflux.^[2][6]
2. An overflowing, superfluity, excess.^[2][3]
3. (of style) Exuberance, redundancy.^[3][4]
4. (Medieval Latin) The redounding or recoil of an action or effect.^[6]

Related words

• English redundancy

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 g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d 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