LOGOI

The corpus record — Latin

animal

animal · n

a living being

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 121 attested works shown, by occurrences per 10,000 attested tokens.

What it meant

ănĭmăl — Lewis & Short

ănĭmăl, ālis (n.as if for animale, which is found in Cic. Fin. 2, 10, 31 MS.; Lucr. 3, 635; cf. animalis,

abl. animali; but Rhem. Palaem. p. 1372 P. gives animale),
I a living being, an animal.
I In the widest sense, zw=on (cf. zwo/s = living): inanimum est omne, quod pulsu agitatur externo, quod autem est animal, id motu cietur interiore et suo, Cic. Tusc. 1, 23, 54, where it is opp. to the adj. inanimum, and therefore is equivalent to animale; cf. id. Ac. 2, 12: uti possint sentire animalia quaeque, Lucr. 2, 973: cum omne animal patibilem naturam habeat, etc., Cic. N. D. 3, 12, 29; 2, 47, 122: formicae, animal minumum, Plin. 7, 15, 13, § 65; 28, 4, 6, § 33 et saep.—Of men: animal providum et sagax homo, Cic. Leg. 1, 7, 22; so id. Fin. 2, 13: sanctius his animal, Ov. M. 1, 76: bicipites hominum aliorumve animalium, Tac. A. 15, 47: (Vitellius) umbraculis hortorum abditus, ut ignava animalia, quibus cibum suggeras, jacent torpentque, id. H. 3, 36; 4, 17: etiam fera animalia, si clausa teneas, virtutis obliviscuntur, id. ib. 4, 64; id. Agr. 34: animalia maris, id. A. 15, 37; Plin. 10, 63, 83, § 171.—Also of the universe, considered as an animated existence: hunc mundum animal esse, idque intellegens et divinā providentiā constitutum, Cic. Tim. 3; 4.—
II Sometimes in a more restricted sense, as antith. to man, a beast (as in Heb. , animal, from , to live): multa ab animalium vocibus tralata in homines, Varr. L. L. 7, 5, 100: alia animalia gradiendo, alia serpendo, etc., Cic. N. D. 2, 47, 122: animalia inusitata ceteris gentibus, nisi invecta, Curt. 8, 9, 16; Sen. Ep 76, 6: si quod animal in mustum inciderit, Col. 12, 31: si quod animal aurem intraverit, Plin. 28, 4, 7, § 37: similitudo non ab hominibus modo petitur, verum etiam ab animalibus, Quint. 6, 3, 57.—Hence, with contempt, of a man: funestum illud animal, ex nefariis stupris concretum, that pernicious brute, Cic. Pis. 9.

In the wild

6 of 1,379 attestations shown.

Where it came from

  • Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine Treated in Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine s.v. animal (scan p. 319; entry #5026).

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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.