tellūs1
Meaning
- earth, ground, soil
- Earth, globe, world
nōn habuit doctōs tellūs antīqua colōnōs
The ancient world did not have skilled farmers. (Other possible translations include “soil” or “country”.)8 CE, Ovidius, Fasti 2.515Nūllus adhūc mundō praebēbat lūmina Tītān, nec nova crēscendō reparābat cornua Phoebē, nec circumfūsō pendēbat in āere tellūs ponderibus lībrāta suīs, nec bracchia longō margine terrārum porrēxerat Amphītrītē; […]
No Titan [Sun] as yet provided light to the world, nor did Phoebe [the Moon] repair new horns in waxing, nor did the Earth hang in the surrounding air, balanced by its own weights, nor had Amphitrite [the sea] stretched her arms down the far borders of the lands; […]8 CE, Ovidius, Metamorphoses 1.10–14 - country, district, region, land
Vix ē cōnspectū Siculae tellūris in altum
Almost beyond sight of the land of Sicily, upon the deep [sea] Or: On the deep [sea], [with] Sicilian land [being] scarcely out of sight29 BCE – 19 BCE, Vergilius, Aeneis 1.34
Latīnē defined in Latin in our graded readers
terra (verbum poētārum).
terra (verbum poētārum)Declension
| form | singular | plural |
|---|---|---|
| nominative | tellūs | tellūrēs |
| genitive | tellūris | tellūrum |
| dative | tellūrī | tellūribus |
| accusative | tellūrem | tellūrēs |
| ablative | tellūre | tellūribus |
| vocative | tellūs | tellūrēs |
Lewis & Short A Latin Dictionary, 1879
ea, quae est media et nona, tellus, neque movetur et infima, Cic. Rep. 6, 17, 17 (for which: terra in medio mundo sita, id. Tusc. 1, 17, 40; id. N D. 2, 39, 98 al.; v. terra): animae vis aut extrinsecus aut ipsā tellure coörta, Lucr 6, 579: telluris operta subire, Verg. A. 6, 140. — Sic erat instabilis tellus, innabilis unda, Ov. M. 1, 15; cf.: jamque mare et tellus nullum discrimen habebant; Omnia pontus erant, id. ib. 1, 291: nec ullis Saucia vomeribus per se dabat omnia tellus, id. ib. 1, 102: exercetque frequens tellurem atque imperat arvis, Verg. G. 1, 99: reddit ubi Cererem tellus inarata, Hor. Epod. 16, 43: non presso tellus exsurgit aratro, Tib. 4, 1, 161: sterilis sine arbore tellus, Ov. M. 8, 789: fundit humo facilem victum justissima tellus, Verg. G. 2, 460.—primum (invocabo), qui omnes fructus agriculturae caelo et terrā continent, Jovem et Tellurem: itaque quod ii parentes magni dicuntur, Juppiter pater appellatur, Tellus, terra mater, id. R. R. 1, 1, 5; and; si est Ceres a gerendo, terra ipsa dea est: quae enim est alia Tellus? Cic. N. D. 3, 20, 52: Tellurem porco, Silvanum lacte piabant, Hor. Ep. 2, 1, 143: aedis Telluris, Cic. Q. Fr. 3, 1, 4, § 14: in Telluris (sc. aede), id. Att. 16, 14, 1: Tellus mater, Liv. 10, 29.— syn.: regio, terra): Tuscula, Tib. 1, 7, 57: tellus barbara Scythiae, id. 3, 4, 91; so, barbara, Ov. M. 7, 53: Delphica, id. ib. 1, 515: Aegyptia, id. ib. 5, 323: Gnosia, Verg. A. 6, 23: nova, Hor. C. 1, 7, 29: Jubae, id. ib. 1, 22, 15: Assaraci, id. Epod. 13, 13 et saep.Origins
Uncertain, but the most likely cognates include Old Irish talam (“earth”) (reflecting Proto-Celtic *talamū, perhaps earlier *telamū), Lithuanian tilės (“flooring, bottom of a barge”), pã-talas (“bed”), Old Prussian talus (“floor”), Old Church Slavonic тъла pl (tŭla, “foundation, bottom”), Proto-Germanic *þelą (“floor; floorboard, type of plank”), and Sanskrit तल (tala, “surface, palm/sole, bottom, floor”). All are possibly derived from Proto-Indo-European *telh₂- (“ground, floor”), a special use of the verbal root *telh₂- (“to bear, carry, lift, support”). The term is unique in Latin in being the only polysyllabic s-stem with a long ū-vowel in the suffix. Also of interest is the ablaut between e in tellūs and *o in medi-tullium (“inner land”). De Vaan suggests, among other possibilities, that the term may derive from an original *-u-stem (but with o-grade ablaut somewhere in the paradigm, which is not usually reconstructed for this type) that was later extended with an s-suffix. He posits a Proto-Italic pre-form *teln- containing a suffixal element *-n-, but for formal reasons the affixation must post-date the loss of the PIE laryngeal in *telh₂-; it may have arisen by analogy with tollō (“to lift”) (Proto-Italic *tolnō). Compare the on-stem of Proto-Germanic *þiljǭ (“board, plank, floorboard; flooring, deck”) and the mon-stem of both Celtic and Ancient Greek τελαμών (telamṓn, “strap”, literally “that which supports”).
- Frenchtellure
- Italiantellure