LOGOI

The corpus record — Latin

bis

bis

twice

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

What it meant

1. bis — de Vaan

bis 'twice' [adv.] (P1.+; dvis Cic. Orator 153) Derivatives: bim3 -ae, -a [adj.pl.] 'two at a time; a set of two' (P1.+). Pit. *dwis. PIE *duis 'twice'. IE cognates: Skt dvi$y Av. bisy Gr. δις, MHG zwir 'twice'. The multiplicative *duis may be analyzed as 'twice' plus PIE *-J, or as 'two' plus PIE *-is by analogy with *tris 'thrice'. Lat. bmi< *dwis-no- presupposes earlier *dui-no-, which can be compared with Gm. … — [de Vaan, s.v. bis, p. 86]

2. bis — Lewis & Short

bis, adv. num.for duis, from duo; like bellum from duellum, Paul. ex Fest. p. 66 Müll.; cf. Cic. Or. 45, 153, and the letter B,

I twice, at two times, on two occasions, in two ways, = di/s (very freq. in prose and poetry).
I In gen.: inde ad nos elisa bis advolat (imago), Lucr. 4, 315; Cic. Q. Fr. 3, 8, 6; Hor. Epod. 5, 33; id. A. P. 358; 440; Verg. A. 6, 32; Ov. M. 4, 517 al.: non semel sed bis, Cic. Verr. 2, 3, 77, § 179: semel aut bis, Quint. 11, 2, 34: bis ac saepius, id. 10, 5, 7; Nep. Thras. 2, 5: bis mori, Hor. C. 3, 9, 15: bis consul, who has been twice consul in all (diff. from iterum consul, who is a second time consul), Cic. Ac. 2, 5, 13; id. Lael. 11, 39; Cic. Verr. 2, 5, 23, § 59; Liv. 23, 30, 15; 23, 31, 6; 23, 34, 15; 25, 5, 3; cf. Val. Max. 4, 1, 3; Suet. Ner. 35.—Sometimes (among later writers) for iterum, now a second time: bis consul, Mart. 10, 48, 20; Prid. Kal. Febr.; Coll. Leg. Mos. et Rom. 1, § 11.—
2 Bis is followed by,
(a) Semel ... iterum, Cic. Dom. 52, 134: bis dimicavit: semel ad Dyrrhachium, iterum in Hispaniā, Suet. Caes. 36; so id. Aug. 25; id. Tib. 6; 72; id. Claud. 6; cf. Wolf, ejusd. id. Tib. 6.—
(b) Primo... rursus, Suet. Aug. 17; 28.—
(g) Et rursus, without a preceding primo, Suet. Aug. 22; id. Tib. 48.—
B Transf., doubly, twofold, in two ways, in a twofold manner: bis periit amator, ab re atque animo simul, Plaut. Truc. 1, 1, 26: nam qui amat cui odio ipsus est, bis facere stulte duco; laborem inanem ipsus capit, et illi molestiam adfert, Ter. Hec. 3, 2, 8 sq.: in unā civitate bis improbus fuisti, cum et remisisti quod non oportebat, et accepisti quod non licebat, Cic. Verr. 2, 5, 23, § 59: in quo bis laberis, primum, quod... deinde, quod, etc., id. Phil. 8, 4, 13: inopi beneficium bis dat qui dat celeriter, Publ. Syr. v. 235 Rib.: bis gratum est, id. v. 44 ib.: bis est mori alterius arbitrio mori, id. v. 50 ib.—
II Particular connections.
A Bis in die, mense, anno, etc., or bis die, mense, anno, etc., twice a day, month, year, etc.; cf. Suet. Aug. 31 Oud.; id. Galb. 4; id. Vit. Ter. 2: bis in die, Cic. Tusc. 5, 35, 100; Cato, R. R. 26; 87: bis die, Tib. 1, 3, 31; Verg. E. 3, 34; Hor. C. 4, 1, 25; Cels. 1, 1; 1, 8; 3, 27, n. 2; Plin. 10, 53, 74, § 146; cf. cotidie, Liv. 44, 16, 5: in mense, Plin. 11, 18, 19, § 59; Suet. Aug. 35: in anno, Varr. R. R. 2, 11, 7: anno, Plin. 2, 73, 75, § 184.—
B With other numerals, and particularly with distributives (class. in prose and poetry): bis binos, Lucr. 5, 1299; Cic. N. D. 2, 18, 49: bis quinos dies, Verg. A. 2, 126; Mart. 10, 75, 3; Ov. F. 3, 124: bis senos dies, Verg. E. 1, 44: bis septeni, Plin. 8, 36, 54, § 127: bis octoni, Ov. M. 5, 50: bis deni, Verg. A. 1, 381; Prop. 2 (3), 9, 3; Mart. 9. 78: bis quinquageni, id. 12, 67: bis milies, Liv. 38, 55, 12; Auct. B. Afr. 90; Val. Max. 3, 7, 1.—
2 Esp., with cardinal numbers to express twice a given number (in the poets very freq., but not in prose): bis mille sagittae, Lucr. 4, 408; so Hor. Epod. 9, 17: bis sex, Varr. ap. Prob. Verg. E. 6, 31, p. 354 Lion.; Verg. A. 11, 9: bis quinque viri, Hor. Ep. 2, 1, 24; Ov. M. 8, 500; 8, 579; 11, 96: bis trium ulnarum toga, Hor. Epod. 4, 8: duo, Ov. M. 13, 642: centum, id. ib. 5, 208 and 209; 12, 188: quattuor, id. ib. 12, 15: sex, id. ib. 6, 72; 6, 571; 4, 220; 12, 553; 12, 554; 15, 39: septem, id. ib. 11, 302: novem, id. ib. 14, 253 al.—
C Bis terve, two or three times, very rarely: a te bis terve summum et eas perbrevis (litteras) accepi, Cic. Fam. 2, 1, 1: quem bis terve bonum cum risu miror, Hor. A. P. 358.—
D Bis terque, several times, repeatedly, Mart. 4, 82, 3; cf.: stulte bis terque, utterly, Cic. Q. Fr. 3, 8, 6. —
E Bis tanto or tantum, twice as great, twice as much: bis tanto amici sunt inter se quam prius, Plaut. Am. 3, 2, 62; id. Men. 4, 3, 6; id. Merc. 2, 2, 26: bis tantum quam tuus fundus reddit, Varr. R. R. 3, 2, 15: Tartarus ipse Bis patet in praeceps tantum, quantus, etc., Verg. A. 6, 578.—
F Bis ad eundem (sc.: lapidem offendi, as in Aus. Ep. 11 med.); prov., to commit the same error twice, Cic. Fam. 10, 20, 2.—
G Bis minus, in an old enigma in Gell. 12, 6, 2, whose solution is Terminus (ter-minus): semel minusne an bis minus, non sat scio: at utrumque eorum, ut quondam audivi dicier, Jovi ipsi regi noluit concedere.!*? In composition, bis, like the Gr. di/s, loses the s: biceps, bidens, bifer, bigener, bijugus, bilix, etc.; hence bissenus, Sen. Agam. 812; id. Herc. Fur. 1282; Stat. Th. 3, 574; and bisseni, id. ib. 12, 811; Aus. Monos. Idyll. 12, and Prud. Cath. 12, 192, are better written as two words: bis senus (seni); so either bisextus, or as two words, bis sextus (Stat. S. 4, 1, 9); v. bisextus.

In the wild

6 of 857 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. bis (scan pp. 86-87; entry #153). Root candidates: *gwetuia-, *gwet-, *betu-.
  • Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine Treated in Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine s.v. bis (scan p. 95; entry #1258).

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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.