vagitus

Forms

vāgītus m (genitive vāgītūs); fourth declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin vāgiō (“to cry, wail”) + -tus.^[2][1] De Vaan lists it among the derivatives of vāgiō, whose etymology he calls uncertain: he gives a doubtful reconstruction Proto-Italic *wāg-ije/o- and, since the Greek and Gothic words for crying and sighing have a different stop, suggests a root Proto-Indo-European *ueh2- (“to cry”) enlarged in different ways in the different branches.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan records it first in Lucretius,^[3][4] who says that every night hears laments mingled with vagitibus aegris, “sickly wailing”, and has vagituque locum lugubri complet, “and fills the place with mournful wailing”.^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

The OLD defines it as a cry of distress, a wail or howl, above all of a baby.^[2] Lewis and Short and Georges give it chiefly of the crying of small children, as in Virgil's voices and vagitus ingens heard at once with the weeping souls of infants, Ovid's and Quintilian's dare and edere vagitum, and Pliny the Elder's vagitus et ploratus.^[5][6] Ovid uses it of the bleating of young goats, and Lucretius and Celsus of a cry of pain.^[5] Solinus calls it the first voice of the newborn, and Jerome speaks of the vagitus of infants.^[6] English borrowed it in the 1650s for the crying of a newborn child.^[7]

Timeline

• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it of wailing.^[3][5][4]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil has vagitus ingens beside the weeping souls of infants.^[5][4]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of the bleating of young goats.^[5][4]
• 1st half of the 3rd century AD – Solinus calls it the first voice of the newborn.^[6][4]
• 1650s – English borrows it as vagitus.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A cry of distress, a wail, especially the crying of a baby.^[2][5][6]
2. The bleating of young goats.^[5]
3. A cry of pain.^[5]

Related words

• English vagitus

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ 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
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 e f g h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com