Etymologically
Log in

senus

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 20 October 2026 at 13:23. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈseː.nʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈsɛː.nus][1]

Forms

sēnus (feminine sēna, neuter sēnum); first/second-declension numeral[1] It is almost always plural, sēnī, sēnae, sēna, with genitive sēnum;[2][3] Statius has the singular.[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin sex (“six”) + -nus, from a pre-Latin ⟨*seksnos⟩.[2][1] De Vaan explains its form by the loss of ⟨*ks⟩ before ⟨n⟩, as in sēdecim (“sixteen”);[4] he traces sex to Proto-Italic *seks and Proto-Indo-European *(s)ueks (“six”).[4] Cognate with Old Irish sé (“six”), Ancient Greek ἕξ (héx, “six”) and Lithuanian šešì (“six”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus,[4] who has hangers-on coming to the courtesans five or six at a time.[2] Cato tells the farmer to make six holes in each piece.[2]

Semantic evolution

As a distributive it means six each or six apiece: Cicero has six denarii exacted from each person, Livy an army in six parts relieving one another every six hours, and Martial a man wearing six rings on each finger.[2] It also means six at a time: Tibullus has the Sibyl singing fates in verses of six feet.[2] In compounds it gives sixteen each, as Cicero's boys of sixteen and seventeen years.[2][3] In poetry it often has no distributive force and means simply six, especially in phrases such as bis sēnī, twice six, in Ovid.[2][3] Horace and Statius use it for the six feet of the hexameter.[3][2]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, “five or six at a time”.[2][4][5]
  • 234–149 BC – Cato, of six holes each.[2][5]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero, of six denarii apiece.[2][5]
  • 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid, bis sēnī, twelve.[2][3][5]
  • c. 45–96 AD – Statius, the singular, of the hexameter.[2][5]

Meanings

Numeral

  1. (chiefly plural) Six each, six apiece;[2][3][1] six at a time.[2]
  2. (poetic) Six;[2][3][1] bis sēnī, twelve.[2][3]

Word family

  • bissēnus
  • sēnārius
  • sēniō

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f 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 q r s Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c d e 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 c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de