ventus¹

Meaning

1. masculinea wind
   [...] Omnis et ūna / dīlāpsus calor, atque in ventōs vīta recessit. And all at once her warmth faded away, and her life receded into the winds. (The death of Dido; the conclusion of Book 4. See the notes by Page, T.E., [1967], pg. 394: “‘Life,’ ‘breath,’ ‘spirit,’ anima, ἄνεμος are so closely connected in human speech that poets naturally speak of life passing ‘into the winds.’”)29 BCE – 19 BCE, Vergilius, Aeneis 4.704-705
   Homō sapiēns nōn ūrīnat in ventumA wise man pisseth not against the windInscription, The Crown 2016–2023

Latīnē defined in Latin in our graded readers

Choosing the right word Döderlein's Latin Synonyms

Declension

Phrases from Meissner's Latin Phrase-Book

vento se dare

to run before the wind.

ventus cadit, cessat

the wind dies down, ceases.

venti ab ortu solis flant

the east winds are blowing.

ventus se vertit in Africum

the wind is turning to the south-west.

ventis secundis, adversis uti

to have favourable, contrary, winds.

ventis reflantibus (Tusc. 1. 49)

with the wind against one.

ventus ignem distulit (B. G. 5. 43)

the wind spread the conflagration.

ventus remittit (opp. increbrescit)

the wind is falling.

Origins

Inherited from Proto-Italic *wē̆ntos, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂wéh₁n̥ts (“blowing”), present participle of *h₂weh₁- (“to blow”). Etymology issues The term is often cited as an example of Osthoff's law, which predicts shortening of long vowels when followed by a resonant and then a consonant. Thus, the thematicized pre-form *h₂weh₁n̥tos could have yielded *wēntos, which would have eventually shortened into *wentos. However, the existence of Osthoff's law in Latin is disputed, and one alternative proposal suggests that *h₂weh₁n̥tos would have instead directly yielded *wentos. According to this theory, the laryngeal would disappear without any accompanying developments as, in Proto-Indo-European, laryngeals did not induce compensatory lengthening when in coda position. Cognate and synonymous with English wind, Sanskrit वात॑ (vā́ta), Avestan 𐬬𐬁𐬙𐬀 (vāta), and Ancient Greek ᾰ̓είς (ăeís). See also Latin vannus, from the same PIE root.

Meaning

1. masculinearrival
   Venilia à veniendo, ac ventu illo, quem Plautus dicit: Quod ille dixit, qui secundo vento vectus est tranquillo mari, ventum gaudeo.116 BCE – 27 BCE, Marcus Terentius Varro, De Lingua Latina 5.72 (quoting Plautus, Cistellaria 14-15)

Declension

Origins

Inherited from Proto-Italic *gʷemtus, from Proto-Indo-European *gʷém-tu-s, from *gʷem- (“to come”). The -n- was, according to De Vaan, potentially adopted from the verb veniō (“to come”). By surface analysis, veniō + -tus (forming action nouns).