vinolentia

Forms

vīnolentia f (genitive vīnolentiae); first declension^[1] Also spelled vīnulentia.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin vīnolentus (“drunk, given to wine”) + -ia.^[2][4] That adjective is one of the derivatives of vīnum (“wine”),^[5] which goes back to Proto-Italic *wīno- and Proto-Indo-European *ueih₁-(ō)n (“vine; wine”), an n-stem from the root “to weave, wrap”, so that the vine was “the weaving one”.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler records it first in Cicero,^[6] who uses it in the Philippics and the Tusculan Disputations.^[7][3]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Latin it is drunkenness as a habit or vice, and the state of being drunk;^[2][3] Döderlein contrasts it with ēbrietās: vīnolentia (like the older tēmulentia) presents drinking as brutal excess and loss of memory, ēbrietās as high spirits.^[8] The Vulgate has the plural for bouts of drinking,^[3] Bede uses it in a list of vices, and Alcuin's work on rhetoric names it with love, anger and grief among the passions that drive people to act.^[9]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it in the Philippics.^[7][6]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus uses it in the Annals.^[3][6]
• c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius uses it in his life of Vitellius.^[7][3][6]
• 390–406 AD – The Vulgate has the plural vīnolentiae.^[3][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. Excessive drinking of wine, drunkenness as a habit.^[2][7][3]
2. Intoxication with wine.^[2][7][9]
3. (Late Latin, plural) Drinking bouts.^[3]

Related words

• vīnolentus
• vīnum
• ēbrietās
• tēmulentia

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b 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 c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
9. ^ a b Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press