totidem

Forms

totidem (indeclinable)^[1]

Etymology

It is tot (“so many”) with the demonstrative particle of īdem (“the same”) and tantundem.^[2][3][1] De Vaan traces tot to Proto-Italic *toti (“so many”) and Proto-Indo-European *to-ti.^[4] Cognate with Sanskrit तति (táti, “so many”) and Ancient Greek τόσος (tósos, “so great, so much”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Plautus,^[5] who has “better to be ashamed than sorry, the same number of letters”, and “how many are they? As many as you and I”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It means just as many, the same number as one already named, as in the poet Hostius' wish for a hundred tongues and as many mouths, and without a number, as many.^[2] With quot or, rarely, atque, it means as many as.^[2][3][1] Cicero uses totidem verbis, “in as many words”, of a passage he translated word for word from Dicaearchus.^[2] Church Latin glosses it “so many, just as many”.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus in the senses as many and as many as.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of a passage translated word for word.^[2][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Just as many, the same number.^[2][3][1]
2. With quot: as many as.^[2][3][1]
3. totidem verbis, in so many words.^[2]

Related words

• tot
• īdem

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 j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
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 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