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The corpus record — Latin

cassus

cassus

it is not contingent, not casual

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

What it meant

1. cassus — de Vaan

cassus 'it is not contingent, not casual', but this is semantically unattractive: it lacks celeber the compelling connotation of 'inevitable'. Maybe the original noun was *cessus, -us the going (away)', ne cessus (est) 'there is no going (from), no escape'? Unfortunately, a noun cessus, -us is only attested in later imperial times (lulius Paulus, 2/3c. AD). BibL: WH I: 193f, II: 152f, EM 109f, 434, IEW 887, Leumann … — [de Vaan, s.v. cassus, p. 117]

2. cassus — Lewis & Short

cassus, a, um, adj.,

I empty, void, hollow.
I Prop. (syn.: inanis, vacuus; mostly poet.).
A Absol.: nux, Plaut. Ps. 1, 3, 137; Hor. S. 2, 5, 36: glans, Plaut. Rud. 5, 2, 37: canna, unfruitful, Ov. F. 6, 406: granum inane cassumque, Plin. 18, 17, 45, § 161: anulus, Fab. Pict. ap. Gell. 10, 15. 6.—Subst.: palearum cassa, Sol. c. 52 fin.—
B Expressing that of which the subject is empty, etc., wanting, devoid of, deprived of, without.
1 With abl.: sanguine cassa (cochlea), bloodless, Poët. ap. Cic. Div. 2, 64, 133; so, virgo dote cassa, Plaut. Aul. 2, 2, 14: lumine aër, Lucr. 4, 368: lumine corpus, id. 5, 719; 5, 757: animā corpus, id. 3, 562.—Poet.: cassus lumine (= vitā), deprived of life, dead, Verg. A. 2, 85; imitated by Stat. Th. 2, 15; and in like sense aethere cassus, Verg. A. 11, 104: simulacra cassa sensu, Lucr. 4, 127.—
2 With gen.: cassus luminis ensis, Cic. Arat. 369.—
3 With ab: elementum ab omnibus, App. de Deo Socr. p. 46.—
II Trop., vain, empty, useless, futile, fruitless (syn.: inanis, irritus): cassum quiddam et inani vocis sono decoratum, * Cic. Tusc. 5, 41, 119; so, copia verborum, Lucr. 4, 511: vota, Verg. A. 12, 780: fertilitas terrae, Ov. M. 5, 482: fraus, Luc. 5, 130: consilia, Sen. Troad. 570: viae, vain, profitless, Stat. Th. 11, 449: labores, Plin. Ep. 8, 23, 6: manus, without effect, Stat. Th. 9, 770: augur futuri, false, erring, id. ib. 9, 629: omen, id. ib. 5, 318.—Subst.: cassa, ōrum, n., empty things: palearum, Sol. 52; esp. of speech: cassa memorare, to talk idly, Plaut. Cist. 4, 1, 16; so, cassa habebantur quae, etc., were thought vain, futile, Tac. H. 3, 55; Sen. Herc. Oet. 352.— Esp. freq. in poetry (in prose, but not in Cic.), in cassum, or, in one word, incas-sum, adverb., in vain, uselessly, to no purpose: ex multis omnia in cassum cadunt, Plaut. Poen. 1, 2, 147; cf. Lucr. 2, 1165: temere, in cassum frustraque, without aim or purpose, fortuitously, id. 2, 1060; so id. 5, 1002; 5, 1430: furere, Verg. G. 3, 100: longos ciebat Incassum fletus, id. A. 3, 345: tot incassum fusos patiere labores? id. ib. 7, 421.—In prose: quae profecto incassum agebantur, Sall. H. 3, 61, 11 Dietsch: vana incassum jactare tela, Liv. 10, 29, 2: incassum missae preces, id. 2, 49, 8: aliquid incassum disserere, Tac. A. 1, 4; Just. 11, 15, 6; Lact. 6, 9, 17; Sen. Brev. Vit. 11, 1: frustra in cassumque. Mart. Cap. 1, § 10.— Also cassum: quid cassum times? Sen. Herc. Oet. 353; cf.: ma/thn, frustra, nequicquam, cassum, Gloss. Cyrill.

In the wild

6 of 143 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. cassus (scan pp. 117-118; entry #244). Root candidates: *kelisri-, *kelabri-, *kel-.
  • Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine Treated in Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine s.v. cassus (scan pp. 127-128; entry #1858).

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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.