previous next

V

[5arg] Whether avarus is a simple word or, as it appears to Publius Nigidius, a compound, made up of two parts.


PUBLIUS NIGIDIUS, in the twenty-ninth book of his Commentaries, 1 declares that avarus is not a simple word, but is compounded of two parts: “For that man,” he says, “is called avarus, or 'covetous,' who is avidus aeris, or 'eager for money;' but in the compound the letter e is lost.” He also says 2 that a man is called by the compound term locuples, or “rich,” when he holds pleraque loca, that is to say, “many possessions.” 3

But his statement about locuples is the stronger and more probable. As to avarus there is doubt; for why may it not seem to be derived from one single word, namely aveo, 4 and formed in the same way as amarus, about which there is general agreement that it is not a compound?

1 Fr. 42, Swoboda.

2 Id. fr. 44.

3 The derivation from locus and the root ple- (of pleo, plenus, etc.) seems to be correct.

4 This is, of course, the accepted etymology. The derivation of amarus is uncertain; it is perhaps connected with Greek ὠμός, “raw” (cf. crudus and crudelis). Sanscrit âma-s.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus Introduction (John C. Rolfe, 1927)
load focus Latin (John C. Rolfe, 1927)
hide References (1 total)
  • Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page (1):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: