The corpus record — Latin

capillus

hair

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

Where it lives

Amores 28 · 17.92/10k
Appendix Vergiliana 6 · 17.3/10k
Medicamina faciei femineae 1 · 16.31/10k
De Cultu Feminarum 7 · 13.66/10k
Ars Amatoria 18 · 12.1/10k
Elegiae 14 · 11.33/10k
Epodon 3 · 9.98/10k
Metamorphoses 64 · 8.24/10k
Epistulae 21 · 8.21/10k
Apocolocyntosis 2 · 7.38/10k
De Virginibus Velandis 4 · 7.18/10k
Fasti 21 · 6.73/10k

Densest 12 of 123 attested works shown, by occurrences per 10,000 attested tokens.

What it meant

1. capillus — de Vaan

capillus 'hair' [m. o] (PL+; capillum once PL apud Nonium) The attempts to derive capillus: from caput 'head' are difficult on the formal side, since *kaput-(s)lo- should yield *capullus. Semantically, a derivation of 'hair' from 'head' is far from compelling, Since capillus is a diminutive, and would mean 'little head', which hardly amounts to 'hair\ Phonologically, one expects capillus to be derived from a stem … — [de Vaan, s.v. capillus, p. 103]

2. căpillus — Lewis & Short

căpillus, i, m. (căpillum, i, n., dim. form, akin to caput and Gr. kefalh/; lit., adj. sc. crinis].

Plaut. Most. 1, 3, 97, acc to Non. p. 198, 20) [a

I Lit., the hair of the head, the hair (while crinis is any hair).

A Collect. (hence, acc. to Varr, ap. Charis. p. 80 P. in his time used only in the sing.; but the plur is found once in Cic., and since the Aug. poets very freq.) capillus passus, prolixus, circum caput Rejectus neglegenter, Ter. Heaut. 2, 3, 49; cf. id. Phorm. 1, 2, 56: versipellis, Plaut. Pers. 2, 2, 48: compositus (or -um, acc. to Non. l. l.), id. Most. 1, 3, 97; Ter Eun. 4, 3, 4 Ruhnk.; 5, 2, 21: compositus et delibutus, Cic. Rosc. Am. 46, 135: horridus, id. Sest. 8, 19: promissus, long hair, Caes. B. G. 5, 14: longus barbaque promissa, Nep. Dat. 3, 1: horrens. Tac. G. 38: ornatus, Prop. 1, 2, 1: tonsus, Ov. M. 8, 151: niger, Hor. A. P. 37: albus, id. Epod. 17, 23: albescens, id. C. 3, 14, 25: fulvus, Ov. M. 12, 273 (opp. barba): virgines tondebant barbam et capillum patris, Cic. Tusc. 5, 20, 58: capillum et barbam promisisse, Liv. 6, 16, 4; Plin. 11, 39, 94, § 231.—

B A hair (sing. very rare): in imaginem capilli unius sat multorum, Cael. Aur. Tard. 2, 11, 29.—So plur. (freq.), Cic. Pis. 11, 25; Prop. 1, 15, 11; 3 (4), 6, 9; Hor. C. 1, 12, 41; 1, 29, 7; 2, 11, 15; 3, 20, 14; Quint. 8, 2, 7; 11, 3, 160 (in Ov. M. alone more than fifty times).—

II Transf.

A The hair of men gen., both of the head and beard: Dionysius cultros metuens tonsorios, candente carbone sibi adurebat capillum, Cic. Off. 2, 7, 25 Beier (cf. id. Tusc. 5, 20, 58: ut barbam et capillum sibi adurerent): ex barbā capillos detonsos neglegimus, Sen. Ep. 92, 34; Suet. Ner. 1.—

B The hair of animals: cuniculi, Cat. 25, 1: apum, Col. 9, 10, 1; Pall. Jun. 7, 7: haedi, Gell. 12, 1, 15: membranae, Pers. 3, 10; cf. Macr. S. 5, 11.—

C The threads or fibres of plants, Phn. 21, 6, 17, § 33: capillus in rosā, id. 21, 18, 73, § 121; hence, capillus Veneris, a plant, also called herba capillaris, maidenhair, App. Herb. 47.

3. capillus — Walde–Hofmann

capillus, - m. „Haar, bes. Haupt- und Barthaar* (seit Plaut., rom., ebenso -dfüra f. , Haarbedeckung" seit Plin., -490 f. , aupthaar* Ter.; «mentum n. „Haar“ seit Vitr., -aceus ,haarühnlich* seit Plin., -itium Apul. nach calvitium, Leumann-Stolz® 210; aus dem Lat. entl. got. kaptilón „sich die Haare scheren*, vgl. capillätüriae Lex. Sal. „die erste Haarschur", zum Suffix vgl. barbatöria Petr.): Et. unsicher. Kaum … — [Walde–Hofmann, s.v. capillus, p. 190]

In the wild

capillo Vitruvius, De Architectura 10.11.2
capillo Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 28.7.p3
capillis Celsus, De Medicina 4.2.p1
capillos Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.673
capillum Livy, Ab urbe condita, books 6-10 - 6 p16
capillos Ovid, Metamorphoses 14.278

6 of 618 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. capillus (scan p. 103; entry #201). Root candidates: *kaput-.
Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine Treated in Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine s.v. capillus (scan p. 119; entry #1710).
Walde-Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch Treated in Walde-Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch s.v. capillus (scan pp. 190-193; entry #554). Root candidates: *ca-, *pils-, *caplelo-.

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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.