siccitas

Forms

siccitās f (genitive siccitātis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin siccus (“dry”) + -tās.^[2][3] De Vaan calls the etymology of siccus uncertain: it may belong with Proto-Indo-European *si-sk-u- (“dry”), seen in Avestan hišku- (“dry”) and Middle Irish sesc (“dry, barren”), but how that could give the Latin form is unclear;^[4] Ernout and Meillet and Pokorny instead connect it with a root meaning to pour.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus uses it in the Rudens, of excessive dryness.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

It is dryness, especially of weather, and drought: Cicero writes of a stream running well in a great drought,^[2] and of the dry land at Sipontum.^[2] Caesar uses the plural of marshes dried up.^[2] Of the body, Varro has the healthy firmness the Persians gained from exercise.^[2] Of style it is dryness or aridity, as in the Brutus.^[2] Lewis & Short note that it is frequent and classical, in singular and plural.^[5] Stelten gives “drought, dryness”, and in British Medieval Latin Bede has the dryness of the desert.^[6][7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, of being parched.^[2][5][3]
• 116–27 BC – Varro, of bodily firmness.^[2][3]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of drought and of a dry style.^[2][3]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar, of dried-up marshes.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. Dryness; dry weather, drought; dried-up ground.^[2][5][1]
2. Dryness of the body, freedom from excess moisture; excessive dryness.^[2][5]
3. Dryness, aridity (of style).^[2]

Related words

• siccus
• siccō
• exsiccō

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
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 c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ 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