Quirites
English
Etymology
From Latin Quirītēs "Roman citizens”.
Proper noun
Quirites
- (historical) The citizens of early Rome.
Related terms
- quiritarian
- quiritary
Latin
Etymology
Uncertain. A common proposal is Proto-Italic *kom + *wiros (“fellow man”), which De Vaan (2008) rejects by contrasting the phonetic evolution in cūria, yet doesn't settle on an etymon. Against this, Vine (2016) suggests that the two words could simply stem from periods of different stress, so that different syllables underwent vowel reduction: /kowiˈriː-/ > /kʷiˈriː-/ like Late Latin quāgulum from coāgulum. [1]
According to a Roman legend, from the Sabine town, Curēs, which would make it a Sabine loanword. In Ancient Greek the inhabitants of Cures where named Κυρῖται (Kurîtai).
Compare Ancient Greek Κούρητες (Koúrētes).
Pronunciation
- (Classical) IPA(key): /kʷiˈriː.teːs/, [kʷɪˈriːt̪eːs̠]
- (Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): /kwiˈri.tes/, [kwiˈriːt̪es]
Proper noun
Quirītēs m pl (genitive Quirītium or Quirītum); third declension
- The endonym of the Romans in their civil capacity, while Rōmānī referred to them in a political and military capacity.
- (very rare, poetic) the inhabitants of the Sabine town, Cures
Declension
Third-declension noun (i-stem or imparisyllabic non-i-stem), plural only.
| Case | Plural |
|---|---|
| Nominative | Quirītēs |
| Genitive | Quirītium Quirītum |
| Dative | Quirītibus |
| Accusative | Quirītēs Quirītīs |
| Ablative | Quirītibus |
| Vocative | Quirītēs |
Related terms
- Quirīs
References
- De Vaan, Michiel (2008) Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN
- Brent Vine (2016), “"Latin bēs/bessis 'two thirds of an as'"”, in Tavet Tat Satyam: Studies in Honor of Jared S. Klein on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, page 327
Further reading
- “Quirites”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “Quirites”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
- Quirites 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)
- Quirites in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette