tabidus

Forms

tābidus (feminine tābida, neuter tābidum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin tābeō (“to melt, waste away”) + -idus.^[2][1] De Vaan traces tābeō to Proto-Italic *tāf-ē- (“to be melting”) and Proto-Indo-European *teh2-bh-eh1- (“to be melting”); the sense to melt developed into to waste away, which underlies all later Latin uses.^[3] He gives the cognates Old Irish taïd (“to melt, dissolve”) and Ancient Greek τήκω (tḗkō, “to melt”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler records it first in Virgil,^[4] who speaks in the Aeneid of a wasting plague that suddenly came on limbs, trees and crops (tabida … lues).^[2]

Semantic evolution

Lewis and Short note that it is perhaps not found before the Augustan age.^[5] Livy uses it of melting snow, and Ovid of his mind wasting away like water flowing from snow;^[2][6] Seneca and Suetonius use it of wasting, emaciated creatures.^[2][6] It also means rotting or decaying, of blood, a liver, and a corpse in Suetonius.^[2][5] Actively it describes what makes things waste: Ovid's wasting old age that consumes iron and stone, and in Tacitus a slow, wasting poison.^[2][6] Augustine uses the comparative of a spider and its web, as things that waste away.^[6] In Ecclesiastical Latin it means decaying, melting, consuming, pining, wasting.^[7] Medieval writers in Britain use it of people growing weak or in poor health, and of putrefying flesh.^[8]

Timeline

• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of a wasting plague.^[2][4]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses it of melting snow.^[2][4]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of a mind wasting away and of wasting old age.^[2][4]
• 354–430 AD – Augustine uses the comparative tabidius.^[6][4]
• Medieval Latin – British writers use it of languishing people and rotting flesh.^[8]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Wasting away, becoming emaciated; melting, dissolving.^[2][5]
2. Putrefying, rotting, decaying.^[2][5]
3. Causing wasting, consuming.^[2][6]
4. (Medieval Latin) Languishing, in poor health.^[8]

Word family

• subtabidus
• tābidōsus
• tābidulus
• tabiosus

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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b c 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