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satietas

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Etymology and origin of the Latin word satietas

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
c. 250–184 BC, Plautus
Ultimate origin
Proto-Indo-European (*sh₂-ti-)

Forms

satietās f (genitive satietātis); third declension[1]

Etymology

It is formed from satis (“enough”) with -tās, like ēbrietās (“drunkenness”).[2][3][4] De Vaan derives ⟨satis⟩ from Proto-Italic *sati- (“satisfaction”) and Proto-Indo-European *sh₂-ti- (“satisfaction, satiation”).[5] Cognate with Old Irish sáith (“fullness”), Ancient Greek ἅδην (hádēn, “to one's fill”) and Lithuanian sótus (“full”).[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has “nor is there any satiety of adorning” in the Poenulus;[2][3] Köbler also gives Plautus.[6]

Semantic evolution

It is a sufficiency or abundance, as Cicero's plenty and abundance of things, a rare sense.[2][3] It is the state of being full of food, as Cicero's view that the pleasure of eating lies in desire, not in satiety, and the state of being sated with any appetite;[2][3][1] ad satietātem is “to the full”.[2][3][1] In rhetoric it is a hearer's weariness, which the Rhetorica ad Herennium avoids by variety.[2]

English satiety, in the 1530s, came from it through French.[4]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of satiety of adorning.[2][6]
  • 86/82 BC – The Rhetorica ad Herennium of a hearer's weariness.[2][6]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of abundance and of being full.[2][6]
  • 1530s – Borrowed into English as satiety, through French.[4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A sufficiency, abundance.[2][3][1]
  2. Satiety, fullness (with food).[2][1]
  3. Satiety, surfeit (of any desire); weariness;[2][3] ad satietātem, to the full.[2]

Word family

  • insatietās

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ 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
  6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
Cite this entry

“Satietas.” Etymologically, 19 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/la/satietas. Accessed 19 Oct. 2026.

Last edited on . ·