duellum

Meaning

1. Old Latinneuterpoeticwar
   Abeo. Valete, iudices iustissimi / domi duellique duellatores optumi.Translation by Henry Thomas Riley Fare ye well, at home, most upright judges, and in warfare most valiant combatants.c. 200 BCE – 190 BCE, Plautus, Captivi prologus.0.67–68 (iambic senarius)
   Victores victis hostibus legiones reveniunt domum,Victorious, the enemy vanquished, our legions are returning home, with a mighty war brought to an end and all the enemy slain.c. 190 BCE – 185 BCE, Plautus, Amphitruo 1.1.188–189 (iambic octonarius)
2. Medieval Latinneutercombat between two contenders, duel
   Mors et vita duello conflixere mirando.Death and life have contended in a marvelous combat.

Declension

Origins

1. Proto-Indo-European*dewh₂-der.?
2. Proto-Italic*dwenos
3. Archaic Latinduenos
4. Old Latin*duenelos?
5. Latinduellum

De Vaan 2008 favors Pinault 1987's proposed derivation from *duenelos, a diminutive of duenos, itself an earlier form of bonus (“good, brave”). Perhaps the sense of "brave" allowed for the term to become a euphemism for wartime deeds, facilitating an eventual generalization to the overall concept of war. Sihler explains the retention of -e- here as an effect of the following l exilis, arguing that *dwe- normally became *dwo- > bo- (compare duenos > bonus). Pokorny instead connected the word to terms such as Ancient Greek δαίω (daíō), which is now often derived from *deh₂w- (“to burn”). By a regular sound change (seen already in Plautus), dw- evolved in Latin to b-: this turned duellum into bellum, the usual form used for the sense "war". However, the archaic form duellum survived in poetry. In Medieval Latin, the sense shifted to a combat between, specifically, two contenders, under the influence of the (non-cognate) word duo (“two”).

In English words that came into English from duellum

• duelduellum
• bellicismbellicus
• bellicistbellicus
• perduellionperduellio

Related words