deus
Catalan
Pronunciation
Galician
Etymology
From Old Galician-Portuguese deus, from Latin deus.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈdews/ [ˈd̪ews̺]
- Rhymes: -ews
- Hyphenation: deus
References
- “deus” in Dicionario de Dicionarios do galego medieval, SLI - ILGA 2006–2022.
- “deus” in Xavier Varela Barreiro & Xavier Gómez Guinovart: Corpus Xelmírez - Corpus lingüístico da Galicia medieval. SLI / Grupo TALG / ILG, 2006–2018.
- “deus” in Dicionario de Dicionarios da lingua galega, SLI - ILGA 2006–2013.
- “deus” in Tesouro informatizado da lingua galega. Santiago: ILG.
Latin
Alternative forms
Etymology
From Old Latin deivos, from Proto-Italic *deiwos, from Proto-Indo-European *deywós. An o-stem derivative from *dyew- (“sky, heaven”), from which also diēs and Iuppiter.
Doublet of dīvus: dẹ̄vos, -om, -ōs > dẹ̄os, -om, -ōs with regular loss of -v- before a rounded vowel; it was also lost between identical vowels, followed by contraction: *dẹ̄vẹ̄(s) > dī(s). As a result, the close -ẹ̄- escaped the regular raising to /ī/ of urban (but not dialectal) Latin, instead merging with /ē/, which itself underwent raising. The remaining genitive singular *dī was regularised to deī, while the vocative became part of the paradigm of the newly-reshaped dīvus.[1][2] de- was later analogicaly introduced into the plural; the form diī(s) is absent from Plautus, and might have been reincorporated from a contraction of dīvī (with the same condition as before), or even be purely orthographic.
Cognates with Ancient Greek Ζεύς (Zeús), Ancient Greek Διεύς (Dieús), Sanskrit देव (devá), Avestan 𐬛𐬀𐬉𐬎𐬎𐬀 (daēuua), Welsh duw, Lithuanian dievas, Samogitian (Žemaitiškai) deivs, Persian دیو (div, “demon”).
Despite its superficial similarity in form and meaning, not related to Ancient Greek θεός (theós) — the Latin cognate of the latter is Latin fānum.[3]
Pronunciation
- (Classical) IPA(key): /ˈde.us/, [ˈd̪eʊs̠]
- (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): /ˈde.us/, [ˈd̪ɛːus]
Noun
deus m (irregular, genitive deī, feminine dea); second declension
- god, deity
- 47 CE, Scribonius Largus, Compositiones medicamentorum 84.6–7, 17–19:
- Sī nōn vīderant medicī, meritō essent culpandī […] Et, ō bone deus, hī sunt ipsī, quī imputant suam culpam medicāmentīs quasi nihil proficientibus!
- If physicians didn't see this, they deserved to be blamed […] And, my god, these are the very people who blame their failure on medications, saying that they don't work!
- Sī nōn vīderant medicī, meritō essent culpandī […] Et, ō bone deus, hī sunt ipsī, quī imputant suam culpam medicāmentīs quasi nihil proficientibus!
- ca. 19 BCE – ca. 31 CE, Velleius Paterculus, Historia Romana 2.126:
- Sacrāvit parentem suum Caesar nōn imperiō, sed religiōne. Nōn appellāvit eum, sed fēcit deum.
- Augustus deified his father [Julius] not by the exercise of power, but by creating an attitude of reverence. He did not just call him a god, but made him be one.
- Sacrāvit parentem suum Caesar nōn imperiō, sed religiōne. Nōn appellāvit eum, sed fēcit deum.
- the ancient Roman “Dī Penātēs,” personal or family gods of hearth and home, embodied as small statues or icons
- 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 1.5–6:
- multa quoque et bellō passūs, dum conderet urbem, īnferretque deōs Latiō.
- And [Aeneas] also suffered much in war, until he could found a city, and could carry his gods into Latium.
(Within the context of ancient Roman religious beliefs, the safe transfer of Aeneas’s family gods from Troy to Italy was symbolically as meaningful as the arrival of the man himself. See: Di Penates.)
- And [Aeneas] also suffered much in war, until he could found a city, and could carry his gods into Latium.
- multa quoque et bellō passūs, dum conderet urbem, īnferretque deōs Latiō.
- epithet of high distinction
- 68 BCE – 44 BCE, Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum 4.16:
- fēcī idem quod in Πολιτείᾳ deus ille noster Platō.
- I did the same thing as our good old everything, Plato, had done in his Republic.
- fēcī idem quod in Πολιτείᾳ deus ille noster Platō.
- 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 5.392–393:
- "Entelle, hērōum quondam fortissime frūstrā […] Ubi nunc nōbīs deus ille, magister nēquīquam memorātus, Eryx? […] "
- "Entellus, once bravest of heroes, though in vain […] Where now is that divine Eryx [the Sicilian king], whom you have vaunted to be your teacher?
- "Entelle, hērōum quondam fortissime frūstrā […] Ubi nunc nōbīs deus ille, magister nēquīquam memorātus, Eryx? […] "
Usage notes
- The regularly constructed vocative singular form would be *dee, but this inflection is not attested in Classical Latin; polytheistic Romans had no formal use for vocally addressing one of the many Roman deities by a generic term for god rather than address a deity by proper name. In Late Latin, following Rome's conversion to monotheistic Christianity, Dee and Deus were adopted as the vocative singular form to address the Christian God, attested to throughout the 4th century AD Biblical Latin Vulgate Bible of St. Jerome. Some scholars suggest dive was used as the classical vocative singular, while others believe the form simply did not exist prior to Christian Latin. However the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae and Oxford Latin Dictionary assert that the classical vocative singular was in fact deus, citing its rhetorical usage by Roman physician Scribonius Largus in the 1st century AD.[4]
Declension
Second-declension noun (irregular).
Case | Singular | Plural |
---|---|---|
Nominative | deus | dī diī deī |
Genitive | deī | deōrum deûm divom |
Dative | deō | dīs diīs deīs |
Accusative | deum | deōs |
Ablative | deō | dīs diīs deīs |
Vocative | dee deus |
dī diī deī |
Coordinate terms
- dea (goddess)
Derived terms
Descendants
References
- Weiss, Michael L. (2009) Outline of the Historical and Comparative Grammar of Latin, Ann Arbor: Beech Stave Press, →ISBN, page 225
- De Vaan, Michiel (2008) Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN
- Fortson, Benjamin W. (2010) Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction, second edition, Oxford: Blackwell, page 1
- John Rauk (1997 April) “The Vocative of Deus and Its Problems”, in Classical Philology, volume 92, number 2, pages 138-149
Further reading
- “deus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “deus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
- deus 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)
- deus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
- Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book, London: Macmillan and Co.
- God made the world: deus mundum aedificavit, fabricatus est, effecit (not creavit)
- God is the Creator of the world: deus est mundi procreator (not creator), aedificator, fabricator, opifex rerum
- the sovereign power of the gods: numen (deorum) divinum
- to be an earnest worshipper of the gods: deos sancte, pie venerari
- to honour the gods with all due ceremonial (very devoutly): deum rite (summa religione) colere
- (ambiguous) worship of the gods; divine service: cultus dei, deorum (N. D. 2. 3. 8)
- to make a pilgrimage to the shrines of the gods: templa deorum adire
- to be regarded as a god: numerum deorum obtinere (N. D. 3. 20)
- to deify a person: aliquem in deorum numerum referre, reponere
- to consider as a god: aliquem in deorum numero referre
- to approach the gods: propius ad deos accedere (Mil. 22. 59)
- we believe in the existence of a God: deum esse credimus
- to deny the existence of the gods: deos esse negare
- belief in God is part of every one's nature: omnibus innatum est et in animo quasi insculptum esse deum
- an atheist: qui deum esse negat
- to pray to God: precari aliquid a deo
- to pray to God: precari deum, deos
- to pray to God: supplicare deo (Sall. Iug. 63. 1)
- to pray to God: adhibere deo preces
- to call the gods to witness: testari deos (Sull. 31. 86)
- to call gods and men to witness: contestari deos hominesque
- and may God grant success: quod deus bene vertat!
- and may heaven avert the omen! heaven preserve us from this: quod di immortales omen avertant! (Phil. 44. 11)
- heaven forfend: di prohibeant, di meliora!
- to appease the anger of the gods: deos placare (B. G. 6. 15)
- (ambiguous) to give thanks to heaven: grates agere (dis immortalibus)
- (ambiguous) the favour of heaven: dei propitii (opp. irati)
- (ambiguous) worship of the gods; divine service: cultus dei, deorum (N. D. 2. 3. 8)
- (ambiguous) belief in god: opinio dei
- (ambiguous) to have innate ideas of the Godhead; to believe in the Deity by intuition: insitas (innatas) dei cognitiones habere (N. D. 1. 17. 44)
- (ambiguous) Nature has implanted in all men the idea of a God: natura in omnium animis notionem dei impressit (N. D. 1. 16. 43)
- (ambiguous) to thank, glorify the immortal gods: grates, laudes agere dis immortalibus
- (ambiguous) with the help of the gods: dis bene iuvantibus (Fam. 7. 20. 2)
- (ambiguous) to sacrifice: rem divinam facere (dis)
- God made the world: deus mundum aedificavit, fabricatus est, effecit (not creavit)
Old French
Alternative forms
Etymology
From Latin duos, duas, the masculine and feminine accusative singulars of duō. The nominative form dui come from plural Vulgar Latin *duī, altered from duō under analogy with forms like duae.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /deu̯s/
Old Galician-Portuguese
Alternative forms
- Deus
- deꝯ (abbreviation)
- dṡ (abbreviation)
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈd̪ews̺/
Proper noun
deus
- (Christianity) God
- 13th century CE, Alfonso X of Castile, Cantigas de Santa Maria, E codex, cantiga 3 (facsimile):
- Por ela nos perdõou / deus o pecado Dadam. / da maçãa que goſtou. per / que ſoffreu muit affan.
- Through her, God forgave us of Adam’s sin. Of the apple he tasted, because she felt very anguished.
- Por ela nos perdõou / deus o pecado Dadam. / da maçãa que goſtou. per / que ſoffreu muit affan.
Portuguese
Alternative forms
- deos (obsolete)
Etymology
From Old Galician-Portuguese deus (“God”), from Latin deus (“god, deity”), unusual in that it was derived from the nominative instead of the accusative (deum), from Old Latin deivos (“god, deity”), from Proto-Italic *deiwos (“god, deity”), from Proto-Indo-European *deywós (“god, deity”), from *dyew- (“sky, heaven”).
Pronunciation
- (Brazil) IPA(key): /ˈdews/ [ˈdeʊ̯s]
- (Rio de Janeiro) IPA(key): /ˈdewʃ/ [ˈdeʊ̯ʃ]
- (Portugal) IPA(key): /ˈdewʃ/
- Homophone: Deus
Noun
deus m (plural deuses, feminine deusa or (poetic) deia, feminine plural deusas or (poetic) deias)
Derived terms
- Deus
- deus-dará
- deus grego
Walloon
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /døː/