nū̆diū̆s
Meaning
- not comparable(...−1) days ago; literally "it is now the ...th day since"
nudius tertius
day before yesterday (it is now the third day)nudius quartus
day before the day before yesterday; three days ago (not four – Latin day counting included both endpoints; if three days ago is the first day, it is now the fourth day)
heri et nudius tertius, Quartus, quintus, sextus, etc., Plaut. Most. 4, 2, 40: nam ego Lemno advenio Athenas nudius tertius, id. Truc. 1, 1, 74: nudius sextus quoi talentum mutuom dedi reposcam, id. Trin. 3, 2, 101; cf. Afran. ap. Charis. p. 192 P.: nudius tertius dedi ad te epistulam longiorem, Cic. Att. 14, 11, 1; here, nudius quintus natus quidem ille est, Plaut. Truc. 2, 6, 28: recordamini, qui dies nudius tertiusdecimus fuerit, Cic. Phil. 5, 1, 2: a nudius quartā die, Vulg. Act. 10, 30.Charlton Lewis's shorter dictionary for students: the same scholarship in plain, modern definitions.
Origins
From Proto-Indo-European *nu (“now; well; and”) + diūs, reflecting the original nom.sg. of diēs (“day”) that was later remodelled on the accusative. The former component cognate to Latin num (interrogative particle), nunc (“now”), nūper (“lately, recently”); its length is uncertain, since the original short vowel of PIE appears to have undergone lengthening in numerous daughter languages, with both Sanskrit and Greek showing both variants. The original nominative also surfaces in me-diū̆s-Fidius (“so help me God”, interjection) as well as in diurnus; whether it retained the length of the ū cannot be established. The uncertainty over etymological vowel lengths is compounded by the fact that both the scansions nŭdĭū̆s (with anceps third syllable) and nūdĭŭ(s) (with s-loss or iambic shortening) are possible in all the occurrences except one, where nū- is required.