sollers

Forms

sollers (genitive sollertis, comparative sollertior, superlative sollertissimus, adverb sollerter); third-declension one-termination adjective^[1] It is also spelled sōlers.^[2][3] The ablative singular is regularly sollertī;^[2][3] Ovid has sollerte.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin sollus (“whole, entire”) + ars (“skill”), from a stem *soll-arti-, so literally having all skill.^[4][2][3] De Vaan traces sollus to Proto-Italic *solno- (“whole”) and Proto-Indo-European *sol(h₂)-no- (“whole”), and ars to *arti- and *h₂r-tí- (“the fitting”).^[4] Cognate with Oscan sullus (“all”), Welsh holl (“all”) and Ancient Greek ἄρτι (árti, “just, exactly”).^[4] He compares allers, built the same way on a word for entire.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Terence,^[5] whose Eunuchus promises a youth accomplished in all that a free young man should know.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It means full of devices, clever, skilled or resourceful, of people and animals, and of activities and contrivances ingeniously devised, as Cicero's skilful and subtle description of the parts of the body.^[2][3] In Church Latin it is glossed skilled, clever.^[6]

Timeline

• 190–159 BC – Terence of an accomplished youth.^[3][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of an ingenious description.^[2][5]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid has the ablative sollerte.^[2][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Full of expedients, clever, skilled, ingenious, resourceful.^[2][3][1]
2. Of activities or things, ingeniously devised.^[2][1]

Word family

• sollertia

Related words

• sollus
• ars
• sollicitus

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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson