Etymologically
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sterilitas

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Forms

sterilitās f (genitive sterilitātis); third declension[1] A spelling sterelitās occurs in the land surveyors.[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin sterilis (“barren”) + -tās.[2][3] De Vaan traces sterilis to Proto-Indo-European *ster- (“lacking, sterile”), cognate with Ancient Greek στεῖρα (steîra, “barren (cow, goat, woman)”) and Sanskrit स्तरी (starī́, “a cow that is barren”); whether a deeper verbal root lies behind it is disputed.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero has it in the De divinatione, of a mule that gave birth in spite of the barrenness of its nature, and of whether the fields will be barren or fertile, and in a speech on the agrarian law of land left uncultivated because it is barren.[2][5]

Semantic evolution

It is barrenness of women and female animals,[2][5] and the unfruitfulness of plants and land, as Velleius has of crops and Columella of vines.[2][5] Pliny the Elder speaks of caelestis sterilitās, weather that makes crops fail, and of the barrenness of fortune, that is poverty;[5] Suetonius and Pliny the Younger use the plural of years of bad harvests.[5] In Medieval Latin it means a famine.[6]

Timeline

  • 81–43 BC – Cicero, of a mule's barrenness and of barren land.[2][5][3]
  • 1st century AD – Columella, of unfruitful vines.[2][5][3]
  • 390–406 AD – The Vulgate, in Lamentations, of the barrenness of the earth.[5][3]
  • early 15th century – sterility appears in English, through Old French.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Barrenness, sterility (of women and animals).[2][5][1]
  2. Unfruitfulness of plants or land; bad harvests, scarcity.[2][5][1]
  3. (Medieval Latin) Famine.[6]

References

  1. ^ a b c 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  4. ^ 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 f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
  7. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com