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The corpus record — Latin

acerbus

acerbus

harsh to taste» bitter, sour» briny

Generated live from the audited Latin corpus — every figure on this page is a database query, not prose from memory.

Where it lives

Densest 12 of 177 attested works shown, by occurrences per 10,000 attested tokens.

What it meant

1. acerbus — de Vaan

acerbus 'harsh to taste» bitter, sour» briny' [adj. o/a] (PL+) Pit. *akri~po- 'having sharpness' or *akro-po- 'shaip'. PIE *h2ok-ri- 'sharpness' or *h2ek-ro- 'sharp'. IE cognates: see s.v. acer. Nussbaum 1999a: 392-400 assumes that Lat acerbus contains the same PIE suffix which in other adj. yields Lat. -idus; its origin is disputed. While Nussbaum reconstructs -idus as PIE *-/<Λ>-, Balles (2003: 22) proposes to … — [de Vaan, s.v. acerbus, p. 36]

2. ăcerbus — Lewis & Short

ăcerbus, a, um, adj.fr. 2. acer, like superbus fr. super, yet the short ă should be noticed,

I harsh to the taste, of every object which has an astringent effect upon the tongue (opp. suavis, Lucr. 4, 661 sq.).
I Prop.: Neptuni corpus acerbum, bitter, briny, Lucr. 2, 472; and esp. of unripe fruit, sharp, sour, harsh, and the like: uva primo est peracerba gustatu, deinde maturata dulcescit, Cic. de Sen. 15: saporum genera tredecim reperiuntur: acer, acutus, acerbus, acidus, salsus, etc., Plin. 15, 27, 32; and since the harshness of fruit is always a sign of immaturity, so Varro, Cicero, Pliny, et al. use acerbus as a syn. for crudus, immaturus, unripe, crude, lit. and trop.: nondum matura uva est, nolo acerbam sumere, Phaed. 4, 2, 4; so Ov. Am. 2, 14, 24; and trop.: impolitae res et acerbae si erunt relictae, Cic. Prov. Cons. 14; cf. Gell. 13, 2.—Hence: virgo acerba, not yet marriageable, Varr. ap. Non. 247, 15; and esp. poet. (opp. to virgo matura, v. maturus): funus acerbum, as a translation of the Gr. qa/vatos a)/wros (Eur. Orest. 1030), Auct. Or. pro Dom. 16: ante diem edere partus acerbos, premature, Ov. F. 4, 647. —
B Transf.
(a) to sounds, harsh, hoarse, rough, shrill: serrae stridentis acerbum horrorem, Lucr, 2, 410: vox acerbissima, Auct. Her. 4, 47;
(b) to feeling, sharp, keen: frigus, bitter, Hor. Ep. 1, 17, 53.
II Fig.
A Of men: Rough, coarse, repulsive, morose, violent, hard, rigorous, severe: melius de quibusdam acerbos inimicos mereri quam eos amicos, qui dulces videantur, Cic. Lael. 24: posse enim asotos ex Aristippi, acerbos e Zenonis schola exire, for there may go forth sensualists from the school of Aristippus, crabbed fellows from that of Zeno, id. N. D. 3, 31 (cf. acriculus): acerbissimi feneratores, id. Att. 6, 1; so of adversaries or enemies, violent, furious, bitter, Cic. Fam. 1, 4: acerbissimus hostis, id. Cat. 4, 6 fin.; so id. Fam. 3, 8: acerbus odisti, Hor. S. 1, 3, 85 K. and H.: quid messes uris acerba tuas? Tib. 1, 2, 98 al. —
B Of things, harsh, heavy, disagreeable, grievous, troublesome, bitter, sad (very often, esp. in Cic.): ut acerbum est, pro benefactis cum mali messem metas! Plaut. Ep. 5, 2, 52; cf. Ter. Hec. 3, 1, 1; Att. ap. Non. 72, 29: in rebus acerbis, Lucr. 3, 54: acerbissimum supplicium, Cic. Cat. 4, 6: acerbissima vexatio, id. ib. 4, 1: acerba memoria temporis, id. Planc. 41: acerbissimā morte affectus, Serv. ap. Cic. Fam. 4, 12, 2 al.—Hence acerbum funus (diff. from above), a bitter, painful death, Plaut. Am. 1, 1, 35: acerbum funus filiae, id. As. 3, 3, 5, and so Nep. Cim. 4: vita ejus fuit secura et mors acerba, afflicting, painful, unwelcome.—In the neutr. subst.: ăcer-bum, i, calamity, misfortune, Ov. Tr. 5, 2, 21; Verg. A. 12, 500—acerba, n. plur. adv. acc. to the Gr. idiom, Lucr. 5, 34 (cf. acuta et al.), several times imitated by Verg. A. 12, 398; 9, 794; id. G. 3, 149.—Adv.: ăcerbe, harshly, sharply, severely, etc., in the trop. signif. of the adj., Cic. Fam. 1, 5; id. N. D. 2, 33; id. Planc. 1: idem acerbe severus in filium, id. Off. 3, 31, 112; Liv. 3, 50. 12; 7, 3, 9; Tac. A. 2, 87 al.—Comp., Cic. Lael. 16; Suet. Tib. 25.—Sup., Cic. Att. 11, 1; Caes. B. C. 1, 2; also Cic. Planc. 35, 86, where, of an exclamation of severe grief, acerbissime for acerrime is defended against Lambinus and Ernesti by Wunder, Planc. l. c. p. 217; so B. and K.

3. acerbus — Walde–Hofmann

acerbus, -a, -um „scharf, schneidend, herb, unreif, unangenehm, Schmerzlich* (seit Plaut., rom.; «itàs f. seit Cic.), s. äcer, Gdf. wohl *geri-bhos (kaum *äcri- mit Vokalkürzung), nicht *aeri-dhos (s. Leumann-Stolz * 91, 226, Pedersen MSL. 22, 5). .a&cerra, -ae f. „Altar zum Rauchopfer, Weihrauchküstchen* (s. Paul, Fest, 18; seit XII tab., altes Wort der Sakralsprache): unerklärt. Kaum mit Muller Ait W. 2 als , … — [Walde–Hofmann, s.v. acerbus, p. 40]

In the wild

6 of 655 attestations shown.

Where it came from

  • de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Brill 2008) Treated in de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Brill 2008) s.v. acerbus (scan p. 36; entry #1).
  • Walde-Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch Treated in Walde-Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch s.v. acerbus (scan p. 40; entry #81).

Latin text and lemmatization derived from the Perseus Digital Library (canonical-latinLit), CC BY-SA 4.0. Lewis & Short (public domain) via Perseus. This derived data is shared under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 license.