valetudo

Forms

valētūdō f (genitive valētūdinis); third declension^[1] It is also spelled valītūdō.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from valeō (“to be strong, be well”), through an unattested participle ⟨*valētus⟩ and the suffix -tūdō.^[2][1] De Vaan traces ⟨valeō⟩ to Proto-Italic *walē- and Proto-Indo-European *h₂ulh₁-eh₁- (“to be strong”), cognate with Old Irish flaith (“rule”) and Hittite hulle- (“to smash, defeat”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus, Curculio: valētūdō dēcrēscit, accrēscit labor, “health dwindles, toil increases”, in the good sense “sound health”.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Its meaning is neutral: the condition of the body, which the context or an adjective makes good or bad (Caesar's optimā valētūdine ūtī, “to be in the best of health”).^[2][3] Used alone it often means bad health, an illness or indisposition, as in Afranius.^[2] Lewis & Short also record it of the state of the mind.^[3]

Church Latin glosses it “health, strength, state of health”.^[5] In medieval Latin it took up the senses of valeō itself: strength, legal validity, violence, value.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus in the sense “good health”.^[2][7]
• 2nd century BC – Afranius in the sense “illness”.^[2][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of a friend's recovered health.^[2][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. Good health, soundness of body.^[2]
2. State of health, condition of the body (good or bad).^[2][3][5]
3. Bad health, illness, indisposition.^[2][1]
4. (Medieval Latin) Strength; validity; force, violence; value.^[6]

Word family

• valētūdinārius

Related words

• valeō
• validus

Usage notes

Döderlein lists valētūdō among the words for illness: its plain meaning is health, and it means ill health only in context.^[8]

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 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 Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
6. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
8. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper