vastitas

Forms

vāstitās f (genitive vāstitātis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin vāstus (“empty, desolate”) + -tās.^[2][1][3] The adjective vāstus goes back to Proto-Italic *wāsto- and Proto-Indo-European *h₁u(e)h₂-sto-.^[3] Cognate with Old Irish fás (“empty”) and Old High German wuosti (“empty, barren”).^[3] The long vowel is not certain, and some scholars separate a ⟨vastus⟩ “enormous” from ⟨vāstus⟩ “empty”, though the dictionaries do not.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler date it from Accius,^[3][4] who has “because of you we suffer so many devastations of deaths”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is the empty or untended state of a place, desolation, as in Cicero's account of the fields of Centuripe, their solitude, their desolation, the flight of the farmers; it is also the devastation caused by war.^[2][5] Concretely it is a desolate expanse, as Cicero's winged serpents brought from the wastes of Libya.^[2] Seneca uses it of vast size or immensity, and Columella uses it of the frightening loudness of a herdsman's voice.^[2]

Church Latin glosses it “waste, desolation, emptiness, empty space”.^[6]

Timeline

• 170–c. 90 BC – Accius of devastation.^[2][3][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of desolate fields and the wastes of Libya.^[2][4]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca of immense size.^[2][4]
• 1st century AD – Columella of a fearsome voice.^[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. Desolation, emptiness of a place; devastation.^[2][5][1]
2. A waste, wilderness, desert.^[2][5][1]
3. Immensity, vastness; fearful intensity.^[2][1]

Related words

• vāstus
• vāstō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson