viduo

Forms

viduō (present infinitive viduāre, perfect active viduāvī, supine viduātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin viduus (“bereft, deprived”) + -ō.^[2][1][3] Viduus goes back to Proto-Italic *wiþowo- and Proto-Indo-European *h1ui-dhh1-eu-o- (“separated”).^[3] It is cognate with Sanskrit विधवा (vidhávā, “widow”) and Old Irish fedb (“widow”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan records it from Lucretius on.^[3] The OLD's earliest quotation is from Virgil, who says that Mezentius would never have tam multis viduasset civibus urbem, “bereft the city of so many citizens”.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

With an ablative it means to deprive or bereave of something: in Horace the ash trees are not stripped of their leaves, and Seneca, Columella, Statius and Tacitus use it in the same way.^[2][4] Specially it means to widow, as in Suetonius of Agrippina viduata morte Domitii.^[2] Statius and Silius Italicus also use it for emptying a place.^[2] Lewis and Short call it poetic and post-Augustan.^[4] In Ecclesiastical Latin it means to deprive of.^[5]

Timeline

• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it.^[3][6]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil has viduasset civibus urbem.^[2][6]
• 65–8 BC – Horace uses it of trees stripped of leaves.^[2][6]
• c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius uses it of a woman widowed.^[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To deprive or bereave of (with an ablative).^[2][4][5]
2. To widow, bereave of a husband.^[2]
3. To empty of contents.^[2]

Related words

• vidua
• viduitās

References

1. ^ a b c d 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 e 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de