tellus

See also: Tellus

Latin

Etymology

    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”). This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term. Particularly: “De Vaan mentions an Osco-Umbrian ("Sabellic") cognate?”

    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”).[1]

    Pronunciation

    Noun

    tellūs f (genitive tellūris); third declension

    1. earth, ground, soil
      Synonyms: terra, solum, humus
    2. Earth, globe, world
      • 8 CE, Ovidius, Fasti 2.515:
        nōn habuit doctōs tellūs antīqua colōnōs
        The ancient world did not have skilled farmers.
        (Other possible translations include “soil” or “country”.)
      • 8 CE, Ovidius, Metamorphoses 1.10–14:
        Nūllus 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; […]
    3. country, district, region, land
      • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Vergilius, Aeneis 1.34:
        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 sight

    Declension

    Third-declension noun.

    singular plural
    nominative tellūs tellūrēs
    genitive tellūris tellūrum
    dative tellūrī tellūribus
    accusative tellūrem tellūrēs
    ablative tellūre tellūribus
    vocative tellūs tellūrēs

    Derived terms

    Descendants

    • → French: tellure (learned)
    • → Italian: tellure

    References

    1. ^ De Vaan, Michiel (2008), “tellūs, -ūris”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, pages 608–609
    • “tellus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
    • “tellus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
    • "tellus", in Charles du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
    • “tellus”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
    • “tellus”, in The Perseus Project (1999), Perseus Encyclopedia‎[1]
    • “tellus”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
    • “tellus”, in William Smith, editor (1848), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London: John Murray
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