undeviginti

Forms

ūndēvīgintī (indeclinable)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin ūnus (“one”) + dē (“from”) + vīgintī (“twenty”), literally “one from twenty”.^[2][3][1] De Vaan lists it, from Cicero on, among the words made from vīgintī, beside duodēvīgintī (“eighteen”), which is formed the same way.^[4] He traces the word for twenty to Proto-Italic *wīkentī and Proto-Indo-European *dui-dḱmt-ih1 (“twenty”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero has it in the Brutus of someone undeviginti annos natus, “nineteen years old”.^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

It stayed the ordinary word for nineteen: Livy counts nineteen military standards with it, and Tacitus uses it in the Annals.^[3][5]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of a man nineteen years old.^[3][4][6]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy counts nineteen military standards.^[3][6]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus uses it in the Annals.^[5][6]

Meanings

Numeral

1. Nineteen.^[2][3][7]

Related words

• duodēvīgintī

Usage notes

The forms novendecim and novemdecim, which count up instead of down, also occur.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c 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 Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson