alsius

Perhaps rebracketed from the adjective alsior, alsius, but see usage notes.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈaɫ.si.ʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈal.si.us]

alsius (feminine alsia, neuter alsium); first/second-declension adjective

1. (hapax legomenon) chilly, cold
   • c. 99 BCE – 55 BCE, Lucretius, De rerum natura 5.1013–1028:

     † cognita sunt, prolemque ex se videre creatam,
     tum genus humanum primum mollescere coepit.
     Ignis enim curavit, ut alsia corpora frigus
     non ita iam possent caeli sub tegmine ferre,
     et Venus inminuit viris puerique parentum
     blanditiis facile ingenium fregere superbum.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Only attested once in the neuter plural in Lucretius (see quote). The manuscript reading alsia might however suggest alsius (nominative neuter singular of alsior (“colder, more chilly”)) which was modified by scribal corruption, as, the positive adjective alsius is not attested elsewhere and morphologically dubious and, alsius (neuter singular) is already known as the only attested form of alsior, making its use here more likely. The text would thus read as "alsius frigidus", "a more bitter cold".

First/second-declension adjective.

alsius

1. nominative/accusative/vocative neuter singular of alsior

• “alsius”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “alsius”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.