laetus

Latin

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

Unknown; possibly related to alacer (“happy, glad, cheerful”).[1] Often compared to lardum (“fat, bacon lard”) and largus (“abundant, bountiful”),[2][3] presupposing an earlier form *lai-to and earlier *lai-es, but de Vaan finds this reconstruction problematic.[4]

Alternative forms

Adjective

laetus (feminine laeta, neuter laetum, comparative laetior, superlative laetissimus, adverb laetē); first/second-declension adjective

  1. happy, cheerful, glad
    Synonyms: felix, libēns, alacer, hilaris, hilarus, vīvus
    Antonyms: trīstis, infelix, maestus, miser, aeger
    Laetus sum. ― I (a man) am happy.
    Laeta sum. ― I (a woman) am happy.
  2. fertile, luxuriant, lush, rich
    • 234 BCE – 149 BCE, Cato the Elder, De Agri Cultura 6:
      Ubi ager crassus et laetus est sine arboribus, eum agrum frumentarium esse oportet.
      Grain should be sown in heavy, rich, treeless soil.
Declension

Lua error in Module:utilities at line 142: attempt to perform arithmetic on local 'h' (a nil value)

Derived terms
Descendants
  • Old French: lié
  • Galician: ledo
  • Italian: lieto
  • Portuguese: ledo
  • Spanish: ledo

Etymology 2

From Gothic *𐌻𐌴𐍄𐍃 (*lēts) (attested in Gothic 𐍆𐍂𐌰𐌻𐌴𐍄𐍃 (fralēts, “freeman”)), from Proto-Germanic *lētaz, from Proto-Germanic *lētaną (“to let, rent, free, release”). Attested in the Lex Salica. Cognate with Old Frisian lēt (“serf”), Old English lǣt (“serf”), English let, liege.

Alternative forms

Pronunciation

Noun

laetus m (genitive laetī); second declension (Late Latin)

  1. A foreign bondman who received a piece of land to cultivate, for which he paid tribute to his master; a serf.
Declension

Lua error in Module:utilities at line 142: attempt to perform arithmetic on local 'h' (a nil value)

Derived terms
  • laeticus
    • Old French: lige, liege (see there for further descendants)
Descendants
  • → Old Saxon: lido, liddo (< litus)
  • → Old High German: litus
    • Middle High German: *lite
      • German: Lite

References
  • Ernout, Alfred; Meillet, Antoine (1985), “laetus”, in Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine: histoire des mots (in French), with additions and corrections of Jacques André, 4th edition, Paris: Klincksieck, published 2001, pages 337b–338a
  • “laetus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • “laetus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • laetus in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
  • laetus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette
  • Carl Meißner; Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
    • the laughing cornfields: laetae segetes
  • “laetus”, in William Smith, editor (1848) A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London: John Murray
  1. Buck, C. D. (2008). A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages. United States: University of Chicago Press.
  2. Pokorny, Julius (1959), “652”, in Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch [Indo-European Etymological Dictionary] (in German), volume 2, Bern, München: Francke Verlag, page 652
  3. Roberts, Edward A. (2014) A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Spanish Language with Families of Words based on Indo-European Roots, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN, p. 820
  4. De Vaan, Michiel (2008), “laetus”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 323
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