spiritalis

Forms

spīritālis (neuter spīritāle, adverb spīritāliter); third-declension two-termination adjective^[1] The manuscripts vary between spīritālis and spīrituālis.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin spīritus (“breath, spirit”) + -ālis.^[1][3][4] The English word spiritual comes from Old French or directly from the medieval Latin word.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Vitruvius is the first to have it, for a class of machines worked by air, which he says the Greeks call πνευματικόν (pneumatikón).^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Its first sense was “of the air or wind”, and then “of breathing”: Lactantius calls the windpipe a fistula spīritālis, and Arnobius uses it of the arteries.^[2][3] In Christian Latin it came to mean “of the spirit”, immaterial or spiritual, opposed to carnālis “of the flesh”;^[3] Tertullian speaks of spiritual substances,^[2] and the Vulgate has it in the letters to the Galatians and the Corinthians.^[2] The neuter plural spīritālia nēquitiae meant the evil spirits.^[3]

Medieval Latin added the sense “seen from the point of view of the supernatural” and “symbolical, mystical”, of the spiritual reading of sacred texts.^[6] As a noun, spīrituālis was a cleric.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 84–c. 25 BC – Vitruvius uses it of machines worked by air.^[2][4]
• c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian uses it for spiritual, as opposed to bodily, substances.^[2][4]
• c. 250–317 AD – Lactantius calls the windpipe fistula spīritālis.^[2][4]
• 390–406 AD – The Vulgate uses it for “spiritual”.^[2][4]
• 1049–1054 – Spīrituālis “cleric” appears in Pope Leo IX.^[4]
• c. 1300 – English has spiritual.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of the air or wind; worked by air.^[2][3]
2. Of breathing: fistula spīritālis, the windpipe.^[2][3]
3. (Ecclesiastical Latin) Of the spirit, spiritual, immaterial.^[2][3][6]
4. (Medieval Latin) Symbolical, mystical, of the interpretation of sacred texts.^[6]

Noun

1. (Medieval Latin) A cleric (as spīrituālis).^[4]

Word family

• inspiritalis
• spīritālitās
• spīritāliter

Related words

• spīrābilis
• spīrāculum
• spīrāmen
• spīrāmentum
• spīrātiō
• spīrātus
• spīritus
• spīrō
• English spiritual

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill