vilitas

Forms

vīlitās f (genitive vīlitātis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin vīlis (“cheap”) + -tās.^[2][1] De Vaan traces vīlis to Proto-Italic *wesli- and Proto-Indo-European *u̯es-li- (“what can be bought”), a verbal adjective whose root appears in Hittite u̯āš- (“to buy”); the expected ⟨vēlis⟩ was raised to ⟨vīlis⟩, perhaps under the influence of the preceding /w/.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler date it from Plautus.^[3][4] The OLD's first example is in Terence's Phormio: “was this the cheapness that cut down our income?”^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is first lowness of price: Cicero describes a sudden fall in the price of grain after scarcity.^[5][2] From cheapness it passed to worthlessness and low esteem, as in Seneca, and to baseness of character or lowness of rank, as when Curtius speaks of the cheapness of a body made common.^[2] Pliny the Elder uses it of the ordinary quality that gave a kind of plum its name, “asses' plums”.^[2] Church Latin glosses it baseness.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it.^[3][4]
• 190–159 BC – Terence of low prices.^[2][4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of the cheapness of grain.^[5][4]
• 1st century AD – Curtius of baseness.^[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. Lowness of price, cheapness; worthlessness.^[2][5][1]
2. Low esteem, contempt.^[2][1]
3. Baseness, meanness; lowness of rank.^[2][6][1]
4. Common or ordinary quality.^[2]

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