ululatus

Forms

ululātus m (genitive ululātūs); fourth declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ululō (“to howl”) + -tus, an action noun.^[2][1] De Vaan calls ululō an onomatopoeic verb for a sound like ⟨u⟩; it may go back to Proto-Indo-European, but this cannot be proved.^[3] He compares Sanskrit उलूक (úlūka-, “owl”), Ancient Greek ὑλάω (hulláō, “to bark”) and Old High German ūla (“owl”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Caesar, who writes of a victory shouted out with yells;^[4][2][5] Lewis & Short call them the war cries of the Gauls.^[4][2][5]

Semantic evolution

It is any drawn-out cry: of grief, as the women's wailing that fills the houses in the Aeneid; of triumph or defiance, as in Caesar; of religious frenzy, as of the Maenads in Catullus.^[2] Pliny the Elder uses it of a dog howling for its dead master.^[2] Lewis & Short find it also in Ovid, Curtius and Statius.^[5] Church Latin glosses it wailing, shrieking, howling.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 50 BC – Caesar of yells of victory.^[2][5][4]
• 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus of the cries of Maenads.^[2][4]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of women wailing.^[2][4]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder of a dog howling.^[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A howling, wailing, yell: of grief; of triumph or defiance; of religious frenzy.^[2][5][6][1]
2. The howling of dogs or wolves.^[2]

Related words

• ululō
• ulula

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 k 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 f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson