crassitudo Latin · revision 33536

+ {{infobox|confidence=established|formation=derivation|attested=c. 250–184 BC, Plautus}}

+

+ ==Forms==

+ '''crassitūdō''' ''f'' (genitive crassitūdinis); third declension^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Etymology==

+ It is [[af|la|crassus|-tūdō|t1=thick]].^(OLD 2012)^(TLL)^(Wiktionary) The origin of the adjective is unclear: de Vaan rejects the older derivation from a root meaning to wind and notes that it belongs to a group of pejorative adjectives for human shapes with a double consonant.^(de Vaan 2008)

+

+ ==Earliest recorded meaning==

+ Plautus has it first,^(de Vaan 2008)^(Köbler 2010) in the ''Mostellaria'': ''specta postis … quanta firmitate facti et quanta crassitudine'', look at the doorposts, how firmly made and how thick.^(OLD 2012)^(TLL)

+

+ ==Semantic evolution==

+ It is thickness as a measurement:^(OLD 2012) Caesar gives the thickness of walls as five feet, and Vitruvius the thickness of columns.^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879) It is also great thickness, and of liquids consistency or density: Cato wants a mixture as thick as a plaster, Cicero speaks of the density of the air, and Cato also uses it of rich soil.^(OLD 2012) Concretely it is a thickness of masonry, a swelling on the body and a sediment, all three in Vitruvius or Pliny the Elder.^(OLD 2012) The TLL finds it often in Vitruvius, Celsus, Columella and Pliny.^(TLL)

+

+ Church Latin uses it for thickness, fatness, density, sediment and a clod.^(Stelten 1995)

+

+ ==Timeline==

+ * c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, of thick doorposts.^(OLD 2012)^(TLL)^(Köbler 2010)

+ * 234–149 BC – Cato, of the consistency of a mixture and of rich soil.^(OLD 2012)^(Köbler 2010)

+ * 81–43 BC – Cicero, of the density of the air.^(OLD 2012)^(Köbler 2010)

+ * c. 50 BC – Caesar, of the thickness of walls.^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879)^(Köbler 2010)

+

+ ==Meanings==

+ ===Noun===

+ # [[m|en|thickness]] (as a measurement).^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879)^(Wiktionary)

+ # Great thickness.^(OLD 2012)

+ # Consistency, [[m|en|density]] (of liquids, air); richness (of soil).^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879)^(Wiktionary)

+ # A thickness of masonry.^(OLD 2012)

+ # A swelling on the body.^(OLD 2012)

+ # [[m|en|sediment]], dregs.^(OLD 2012)^(Lewis & Short 1879)^(Wiktionary)

+

+ ==Related words==

+ * [[crassus]]

+

+ ==Usage notes==

+ An ancient grammarian notes that all nouns in ''-tūdō'' are derived, feminine and of the third declension, adding ''-tūdō'' to the genitive of the adjective, as ''rectus, rectī, rectitūdō''.^(TLL)

+

+ ==References==

+ {{reflist}}