vetustas

Forms

vetustās f (genitive vetustātis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed with the suffix -tās from the stem of vetus (“old”), as in vetustus (“ancient”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan traces ⟨vetus⟩ to Proto-Indo-European *uet-os- (“year”), “of many years”, cognate with Ancient Greek ἔτος (étos, “year”), Sanskrit वत्सर (vatsará-, “year”), Hittite u̯itt- (“year”) and Old Church Slavonic ветъхъ (vetŭxŭ, “old”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Ennius, Annals: multa tenēns antīqua, sepulta vetustās quae facit, “knowing many ancient things that the long past has buried”.^[2][4] De Vaan records it from Plautus on.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Vetustās is the condition of being old: the beauty of form fades through disease or age (Rhetorica ad Herennium), wine is mellow with age (Plautus), and an illness grows chronic.^[2] It is also long existence and antiquity, the archaic quality of things (Virgil), and age as what wears and destroys (Cato of vessels broken by age).^[2] Of affairs it is long duration, “time”, and in a person long practice and experience (Cicero).^[2] Ennius already uses it for the distant past and its people.^[2]

Church Latin glosses it “old age, old life, former ways, antiquity, posterity”.^[5]

Timeline

• 204–169 BC – Ennius of the buried past.^[2][4]
• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of wine mellow with age.^[2][4]
• 234–149 BC – Cato of vessels broken by age.^[2][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of a town ancient in age and of experience.^[2][6][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. Old age, age; the mellowness of old wine.^[2][1][5]
2. Long existence; antiquity; archaic quality.^[2][1][5]
3. Age as bringing decay.^[2]
4. Long duration; long practice, experience.^[2][1]
5. The distant past, its people and institutions; antiquity.^[2]

Related words

• vetus
• vetustus
• veterānus

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 m n o 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 Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
6. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press