salaputium

Latin

Etymology

Borrowed from Oscan; the breakdown of this otherwise unattested Oscan word would be *sal- (“salt”) +‎ *pū- (“to purify”) +‎ *-t- (root noun suffix for laryngeal-final roots) +‎ *-iom (abstract suffix). The compound is a metaphor for how refined one's own wit ("salt") may be.[1]

The -a- between the first two elements is regular in Oscan to break up word-medial consonant clusters.

Noun

salapūtium n (genitive salapūtiī or salapūtī); second declension

  1. (hapax legomenon) The meaning of this term is uncertain. See usage notes.

Usage notes

  • This word occurs only once in Catullus 53 as perhaps a humorous description of something Catullus's friend Calvus did. Its meaning was obscure already in Roman times; Seneca the Elder interpreted the term as referring to Calvus's own short stature. See Weiss (1996) for etymology and interpretations.

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter).

singular plural
nominative salapūtium salapūtia
genitive salapūtiī
salapūtī1 		salapūtiōrum
dative salapūtiō salapūtiīs
accusative salapūtium salapūtia
ablative salapūtiō salapūtiīs
vocative salapūtium salapūtia

1Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).

References

  1. ^ Weiss, Michael (1996), “An Oscanism in Catullus 53”, in Classical Philology, volume 91, number 4, University of Chicago Press, →DOI, →ISSN, pages 353–359

Further reading

  • “salaputium”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • “salaputium”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
  • “salaputium”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
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