pulvis
Latin
Etymology
From Proto-Indo-European *pel- (“flour, dust”).
Cognates
- Latin pollen
- Sanskrit पलाल (palāla)
- Ancient Greek πάλη (pálē, “dust, meal”)
- Albanian pluhur, Gheg Albanian pluhun (possibly)
- Lithuanian pelenai
- Russian пепел (pepel)
- Old Church Slavonic попелъ (popelŭ)
- Old Church Slavonic пепелъ (pepelŭ)
Pronunciation
- (Classical) IPA(key): /ˈpul.u̯is/, [ˈpʊɫ̪u̯ɪs̠]
- (Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): /ˈpul.vis/, [ˈpulvis]
Noun
pulvis m (genitive pulveris); third declension (sometimes feminine)[1]
- dust, powder, ashes
- 8 CE, Ovid, Fasti 5.655-656:
- ‘mittite mē in Tiberim, Tiberīnīs vectus ut undīs
lītus ad Īnachium pulvis inānis eam.’- “Release [my body] into the Tiber [River], so that, carried by the waves of the Tiber, I may go as lifeless dust to the Inachian shore.”
- ‘mittite mē in Tiberim, Tiberīnīs vectus ut undīs
- 405 CE, Jerome, Vulgate Genesis 3:19:
- pulvis es et in pulverem revertēris.
- Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return (King James ver.)
- pulvis es et in pulverem revertēris.
- (figuratively) an arena, place of contest
- toil, effort, labor
- Synonyms: cōnātus, studium, opus, opera, labor, cūra, intēnsiō, mōlēs
Declension
Third-declension noun.
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | pulvis | pulverēs |
| Genitive | pulveris | pulverum |
| Dative | pulverī | pulveribus |
| Accusative | pulverem | pulverēs |
| Ablative | pulvere | pulveribus |
| Vocative | pulvis | pulverēs |
Derived terms
- pulverulentus
- pulvīnus
- pulvisia
Descendants
See also pulvera.
- Balkan Romance:
- Aromanian: pulbiri, pulbire, pulviri, pulvire, pluburi
- Romanian: pulbere
- Dalmatian:
- pulvro
- Italo-Romance:
- Italian: polve, polvere
- Central Italian: porvere, porvare, polvare
- Tuscan: polvere, porvare, polvare
- Neapolitan: polva, porva, povere
- Sassarese: piuvaru
- Sicilian: pùrbiri
- Italian: polve, polvere
- North Italian:
- Friulian: polvar
- pulvaro, puvoro (Dignano)
- Ladin: polver
- Lombard: polver
- Old Ligurian: pover
- Ligurian: puvie
- Piedmontese: póer, póver
- Romansch: pulver
- Venetian: polvar, polvere
- Friulian: polvar
- Insular Romance:
- Sardinian: pruere, pruine (Logudorese), pruini (Campidanese)
- Vulgar Latin: *pulvus n (see there for further descendants)
- Borrowings:
- →? Albanian: pljúhur, bulbër
- → Middle Low German: pulver
- → Danish: pulver
- → Estonian: pulber
- → Faroese: pulvur
- → Latvian: pulveris
- → Norwegian: pulver
- → Swedish: pulver
- → Finnish: pulveri
- → Old High German: pulver
- Middle High German: pulver
- German: Pulver
- Mòcheno: pulver
- Middle High German: pulver
References
- AIS: Sprach- und Sachatlas Italiens und der Südschweiz [Linguistic and Ethnographic Atlas of Italy and Southern Switzerland] – map 851: “la polvere” – on navigais-web.pd.istc.cnr.it
- Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002), “pŭlvis”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German), volume 9: Placabilis–Pyxis, page 570
- Joan Coromines; José A. Pascual (1985), “polvo”, in Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico (in Spanish), volume IV (Me–Re), Madrid: Gredos, →ISBN, page 599
Further reading
- “pulvis”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “pulvis”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
- pulvis 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)
- pulvis in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette