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The corpus record — Latin

callis

callis

rough track, path

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

What it meant

1. callis — de Vaan

callis 'rough track, path' [m.f. i] (Varro+; inscr.) Pit *kaln/si-7 WH reconstruct *kalnis < *klnis, and explicitly reject appurtenance to callum as 'terra trita' (as do EM). To me, this connection seems quite plausible as far as the semantics are concerned. Bib!.: WH I: 140, EM 87, IEW 524, Schrijver 1991: 100, 427. — [de Vaan, s.v. callis, p. 98]

2. callis — Lewis & Short

callis, is, m. (

I fem., Varr. R. R. 2, 2, 10; Liv. 22, 14, 8; 31, 42, 8; 36, 15, 9; Curt. 3, 10, 10; 4, 16, 11; Amm. 30, 1, 15; 31, 10, 9; cf. Neue, Formenl. 1, p. 673) [etym. dub.; acc. to Serv. ad Verg. A. 4, 405, and Isid. Orig. 15, 16, 10, from callum; cf. Doed. Syn. IV. p. 68], a stony, uneven, narrow footway, a foot-path, a mountain-path, etc.; most freq., a path made by the treading of cattle: callis est iter pecudum inter montes angustum et tritum, a callo pecudum perduratum, Isid. Orig. l. l.: callis = via pecorum vestigiis trita, Vet. Gloss.
I Lit.: per calles silvestres, Varr. R. R. 2, 9 fin.; 2, 10, 1 and 3; Cic. Sest. 5, 12 Orell.: inde prope inviis callibus ad dictatorem perfugerunt, Liv. 22, 15, 10; cf. id. 32, 11, 2; Verg. A. 4, 405; cf. Ov. M. 7, 626 al.: per calles ignotos, Liv. 31, 42, 8; 35, 27, 6; 36, 15, 9; 38, 2, 10; Curt. 7, 11, 7: secreti, Verg. A. 6, 443: surgens, Pers. 4 (3), 57.—
II Transf.
A A mountain-pasturage, alp, declivity, mountain-pass, defile (cf. Vogel ad Curt. 3, 10, 10 N. cr.): rara per occultos lucebat semita calles, Verg. A. 9, 383 Heyne: nos hic pecorum modo per aestivos saltus deviasque callis exercitum ducimus, Liv. 22, 14, 8: per calles saltusque Macedonicorum montium, id. 44, 36, 10: in Ciliciae angustiis et inviis callibus dimicare, Curt. 4, 13, 6: angustis in Ciliciae callibus, id. 4, 9, 22; 5, 4, 4; 5, 4, 17; Liv. 35, 30, 10: quaestor, cui provincia vetere ex more calles evenerant, Tac. A. 4, 27 Orell. and Draeg. ad loc.; cf.: (provincia) semitae callesque, Suet. Aug. 19: calles consitae arboribus, Amm. 31, 10, 9.—
B A way, path, road, in gen., Val. Fl. 3, 568; 5, 394 (but in Lucr. 6, 92, the correct read. is calcis, not callis; v. Lachm. ad h. l.).

In the wild

6 of 24 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. callis (scan p. 98; entry #186).
  • Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine Treated in Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine s.v. callis (scan p. 111; entry #1551).

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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.