Etymologically
Log in

sceleratus

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 18 October 2026 at 22:44. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • Classical: [skɛ.ɫɛˈraː.tʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ʃe.leˈraː.tus][1]

Forms

scelerātus (feminine scelerāta, neuter scelerātum, comparative scelerātior, superlative scelerātissimus); first and second declension[2]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin scelus (“crime, wickedness”) + -ātus.[2] Lewis & Short and Wiktionary take it as the perfect passive participle of scelerō (“to pollute, defile”), used as an adjective.[3][1] De Vaan traces the noun to Proto-Italic *skelos and Proto-Indo-European *skel-os (“curve, bending”), cognate with Ancient Greek σκέλος (skélos, “leg”) and σκολιός (skoliós, “crooked, unjust”); this supposes a shift of meaning from “crooked” to “wicked”.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus, in the Epidicus, says a pimp will bind “his accursed head” (scelerātum caput suom) by a bargain, of a hateful, criminal person.[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Places that lay under a curse were scelerātus, and several kept the word in their names: the vīcus scelerātus on the Esquiline, where Tullia drove her carriage over her father's body (Varro, Livy); the porta scelerāta, a name of the Porta Carmentalis, through which the 306 Fabii marched out to their deaths; the campus scelerātus by the Colline gate, where Vestals who broke their vows were buried alive; the castra scelerāta, the camp where Drusus died (Suetonius); and the sēdēs scelerāta, the place of torment in the underworld (Tibullus).[2] Of people it meant ill-starred, and more often criminal, accursed for what they had done; poets also applied it to venomous animals and harmful forces.[2] Cicero uses it of deeds, scelerātum nefāriumque latrōcinium, “a wicked and impious robbery”, and Virgil once of the punishment of the guilty.[2]

Used as a noun it is a criminal or villain.[1] Church Latin glosses it “defiled, polluted, profaned”.[5]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a criminal pimp.[2][6]
  • 116–27 BC – Varro on the vīcus scelerātus.[2][6]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of wicked deeds.[2][6]
  • c. 55–19/18 BC – Tibullus' sēdēs scelerāta in the underworld.[2][6]
  • c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius on the castra scelerāta.[2][6]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. (of places) Lying under a ban, accursed.[2]
  2. (of persons) Ill-starred, unfortunate.[2]
  3. (of persons) wicked, heinously criminal;[2][3] (of animals) noxious.[2][3]
  4. (of acts) Heinous, atrocious, sinful.[2]
  5. (Ecclesiastical Latin) Defiled, polluted, profaned.[5]

Noun

  1. A criminal, villain, wicked person.[1]

Usage notes

Döderlein distinguishes scelestus, which refers to the mind (inclined to crime), from scelerātus, which refers to deeds (stained with crime); that is why scelerātus is the epithet of things such as a gate, a field or a street.[7]

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 n o p Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ 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
  5. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  6. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  7. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper