gnātus

Meaning

1. Old Latinparticipleborn
   Nam equidem, postquam gnatus sum, numquam aegrotavi unum diem, neque ego insanio neque pugnas neque ego litis coepio.1912 translation by Henry Thomas Riley Why, in fact, since I was born, I have never for a single day been ill. I'm neither mad, nor do I commence strifes or quarrels.c. 200 BCE, Plautus, Menaechmi 959
   Venit hoc mihi, Megadore, in mentem, ted esse hominem divitem, factiosum, me autem esse hominem pauperum pauperrimum; nunc si filiam locassim meam tibi, in mentem venit te bovem esse et me esse asellum: ubi tecum coniunctus siem, ubi onus nequeam ferre pariter, iaceam ego asinus in luto,1916 translation by Paul Nixon Now here's the way it strikes me, Megadorus,—you're a rich man, a man of position: but as for me, I'm poor, awfully poor, dreadfully poor. Now if I was to marry off my daughter to you, it strikes me you'd be the ox and I'd be the donkey. When I was hitched up with you and couldn't pull my share of the load, down I'd drop, I, the donkey, in the mud; and you, the ox, wouldn't pay any more attention to me than if I'd never been born at all.c. 186 BCE, Plautus, Aulularia 2.2.49–54
2. Old Latinablativeparticipledescended from, born to
   Ego patri meo esse fateor summas divitias domi1912 translation by Henry Thomas Riley I confess that my father has very great wealth at home, and that I am born of a very noble familyc. 200 BCE – 190 BCE, Plautus, Captivi 2.2.68–69
3. Old Latinparticipleaged (having the age of); -old
   Annos gnatus sexaginta qui erit, si quem scibimus si maritum sive hercle adeo caelibem scortarier cum eo nos hac lege agemus:[…]If we find out that any sixty-year-old, married or unmarried, whores around, we shall deal with him according to the following lawc. 206 BCE – 188 BCE, Plautus, Mercator 5.4.57–59

Origins

From Proto-Italic *gnātos (“born; son”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵn̥h₁tós (“begotten; produced”), from *ǵenh₁- (“to produce, give birth, beget”). When used as a verb form, it functions as the perfect active participle of the deponent verb nāscor (“to be born”). The form *gnātos must have previously also served as the perfect passive participle of the transitive verb gignō (“to bear; to beget; to engender”), whose attested perfect passive participle genitus is a relatively recent replacement built by analogy to the stem of the perfect genuī. Continued association with the latter verb, and with other related words where initial /g/ was regularly retained due to a following vowel, such as genus (“birth, origin, lineage, descent”), could be part of the reason a spelling with gn- was used for this word for some time after regular sound change had generally replaced initial /ɡn-/ in Latin with /n-/. Another influence on the spelling could have been the medial -gn- found in related prefixed words such prōgnātus, cognātus. Alternatively, Köhm 1905 suggests that the relatively frequent occurrence of the noun after a possessive pronoun could have caused /ɡn/ to be retained just as it was in word-internal position.

Related words