The corpus record — Latin

acervus

heap

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

Where it lives

Moretum, Appendix Vergiliana 1 · 12.92/10k
Satyrarum libri 6 · 4.23/10k
Elegiae 5 · 4.05/10k
Epistulae 4 · 4.04/10k
Pro M. Scauro 1 · 3.37/10k
Panegyricus de quarto consulatu Honorii Augusti 1 · 2.52/10k
Saturae 1 · 2.21/10k
Georgicon 3 · 2.12/10k
De agri cultura 3 · 1.92/10k
Remedia Amoris 1 · 1.91/10k
De Fuga in Persecutione 1 · 1.88/10k
Ab urbe condita, books 21-25 - 22 3 · 1.75/10k

Densest 12 of 71 attested works shown, by occurrences per 10,000 attested tokens.

What it meant

1. acervus — de Vaan

acervus 'heap' [m.? ο] (Ρ1.+) Uncertain etymology. Rix 1981: 118 posits Pre-It. *akesuo-, connecting it with Lat. acm 'awn, chaff. While formally conceivable, the required shift in meaning {*akes~ acus 'chaff > *akes-uo- 'heap of chafF > 'heap') is just a guess. BibL: WH I: 8, EM 6, IEW 18ff.f Rix 1981: 118 (- 2001: 286). + — [de Vaan, s.v. acervus, p. 36]

2. ăcervus — Lewis & Short

ăcervus, i, m.v. 2. acer,

I a multitude of objects of the same kind, rising in a heap.

I Prop.

A A heap considered as a body: frumenti, Plaut. Ps. 1, 2, 55; cf. id. Cas. 1, 1, 38; Att. ap. Non. 192, 3: altus, Lucr. 3, 198; 1, 775: ut acervus ex sui generis granis, sic beata vita ex sui similibus partibus effici debeat, Cic. Tusc. 5, 15: acervi corporum, id. Cat. 3, 10: pecuniae, id. Agr. 2, 22: tritici, id. Ac. 2, 29: farris, Verg. G. 1, 185; thus Ovid calls Chaos: caecus acervus, M. 1, 24.—

B A heap considered as a multitude (cf. Germ. Haufen and Eng. colloq. heap): aeris et auri, Hor. Ep. 1, 2, 47.—

II Fig.

A In gen., a multitude: facinorum, Cic. Sull. 27: officiorum negotiorumque, Plin. 36, 5, 4, § 27: praeceptorum, Ov. Rem. Am. 424 al.—

B Esp., in dialectics, t. t., a sophism formed by accumulation, Gr. swrei/ths, Cic. Ac. 2, 16, 49; Hor. Ep. 2, 1, 47; cf. acervalis.

3. acervus — Walde–Hofmann

acervus, ; m. „Haufe“ (seit Plaut.; acervo seit Liv., -Atio seit Sen., -ätim seit Varro): Et. unsicher trotz der an sich nahe liegenden Beziehung auf die Wz. *aR- in Gcer; aber nicht zu ücer „als mit einer Spitze versehen* (Vanitek 5, auch kaum als ,Spreuhaufen* aus *gces-vos oder *aces-ovos zu acus ,Spreu" (Weise Zs. Gymn. 1893, 394, Stolz HG, I 475, Muller Ait,W. 3) oder als ,Steinhaufe* aus *geri-vos (Walde … — [Walde–Hofmann, s.v. acervus, p. 40]

In the wild

acervom Plautus, Casina 1.1
acervos Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 3.274
aceruos Suetonius, C. Caligula 42.1
acervi Persius, Saturae 6.80
aceruum Livy, Ab urbe condita, books 6-10 - 8 p30
acervum Horace, Satyrarum libri 2.3.111

6 of 186 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. acervus (scan pp. 36-37; entry #2). Root candidates: *akesuo-.
Walde-Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch Treated in Walde-Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch s.v. acervus (scan p. 40; entry #82). Root candidates: *aR-, *ad-, *gar-.

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.