vecors

Forms

vēcors (genitive vēcordis, superlative vēcordissimus); third-declension one-termination adjective^[1] It is also spelled vaecors.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin vē- (“lacking”) + cor (“heart, mind”).^[2][1][4] De Vaan traces cor to Proto-Italic *kord and Proto-Indo-European *ḱērd (“heart”), genitive ⟨*ḱrd-o/es⟩, whose oblique stem the Latin forms continue.^[5] Cognate with Old Irish cride (“heart”), Hittite ker, Sanskrit हृद् (hṛ́d-, “heart”), Ancient Greek καρδία (kardía, “heart”) and Lithuanian širdìs (“heart”).^[5] Cicero already connected it with the heart, reporting that some held the heart itself to be the mind, whence the words for “heartless” and “of one heart”;^[3] Festus explains it as one of a disturbed and bad heart.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Livius Andronicus,^[5] and its noun vēcordia from Terence.^[5]

Semantic evolution

It means mentally deranged, frenzied or mad,^[2] and also senseless or foolish.^[3] It is applied to conduct and speech: Catullus has furor vecors and a mad quarrel, Livy a voice heard in the assembly that was stupid and nearly insane, and Tacitus a speaker popular for his crazed eloquence.^[2] Lewis & Short give excors, dēlīrus and vēsānus as near-synonyms.^[3] Church Latin has it as silly, foolish, mad.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 280/260–before 200 BC – Livius Andronicus has the word.^[5][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of the heart as the seat of reason.^[3][4]
• 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus, of frenzy.^[2][4]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy, of a crazed voice in the assembly.^[2][4]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus, of crazed eloquence.^[2][4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Mentally deranged, frenzied, mad, demented.^[2][3][1]
2. Senseless, foolish.^[3][6]
3. Of conduct or speech, crazed, insane.^[2]

Related words

• cor
• vēcordia
• socors
• excors
• concors

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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
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 de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson