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The corpus record — Latin

ceu

ceu

as, like

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

What it meant

1. ceu — de Vaan

ceu 'as, like' [ptcle.] (Enn.+) Pit. *keiwe. PIE *ke 'here* + *(hi)i-ue 'as'. IE cognates: Skt iva 'like, as'. WH assume *fe/ 'here' + *ue 'or', but Watkins 1973b compares Skt. iva, which seems morphologically more convincing. Hence, ceu can be explained from the particle *fa? (Lat -ce) and PIE *(h])i-ue 'as'. With Watkins, we can posit a development *keiwe > *keiw > *kew > ceu. The development *-eiVF- > *-iwV- did … — [de Vaan, s.v. ceu, p. 126]

2. ceu — Lewis & Short

ceu, adv.contr. from ce-ve, like neu and seu, from neve and sive, a particle of equality or comparison,

I as, like as, just as (in the ante-Aug. per., peculiar to more elevated poetry; later also in prose, in Seneca and Suet., and esp. freq. in Plin. H. N.): pars vertere terga, ceu quondam petiere rates, Verg. A. 6, 492: ceu talpae, Plin. 9, 6, 7, § 17: ceu notamus in muscis, id. 11, 48, 108, § 258; so id. 9, 37, 61, § 132; Suet. Vit. 17; Plin. 19, 12, 62, § 187.—
II In poet. comparisons (hence, haud aliter follows in a corresponding clause, Verg. A. 9, 797; 10, 360, or sic, id. ib. 10, 729), like, as, like as: tenuis fugit ceu fumus in auras, Verg. A. 5, 740; so id. G. 3, 542; * Cat. 64, 239: Hecuba et natae... Praecipites atrā ceu tempestate columbae,... sedebant, Verg. A. 2, 516; * Hor. C. 4, 4, 43: ceu nubibus arcus Mille jacit varios adverso sole colores, Verg. A. 5, 88; so id. ib. 5, 527.—
b With cum, as when, Verg. G. 1, 303: 4, 96; id. A. 7, 673; 9, 30; 9, 792; 10, 97; Sen. Q. N. 6, 24, 4.—
c With si (twice in Lucr.), Lucr. 4, 620; 6, 161.—
B Sometimes in a conditional sense, as if, as it were, like as if, etc., Enn. ap. Non. p. 483, 2: Thesea ceu pulsae ventorum flamine nubes Aërium nivei montis liquere cacumen, Cat. 64, 239: per aperta volans, ceu liber habenis, Aequora, Verg. G. 3, 194; Plin. 2, 28, 28, § 98; 9, 37, 61, § 132; 34, 18, 54, § 175; Suet. Tib. 52; Stat. Th. 1, 320.— Hence, with a subj.: ceu cetera nusquam Bella forent, Verg. A. 2, 438; Sil. 2, 378; Stat. S. 3, 1, 6; id. Th. 2, 417; Plin. 16, 10, 18. § 41; 31, 1, 1, § 2; 34, 6, 13, § 28 al.—
C In the Nat. Hist. of Pliny sometimes ceu vero = quasi vero, in refuting another's opinion, as if, just as if: ceu vero nesciam adversus Theophrastum scripsisse etiam feminam, Plin. praef. § 29; 7, 55, 56, § 188; 11, 39, 92, § 226; 12, 1, 5, § 11 al.; cf. upon this word, Hand, Turs. II. pp. 45-49.

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. ceu (scan p. 126; entry #264).

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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.