The corpus record — Latin
deus
god, deity
Generated live from the audited Latin corpus — every figure on this page is a database query, not prose from memory.
Deus (deus, "DAY-oos," "god, deity") is one of the most heavily attested words in this Latin corpus: 13,880 occurrences spread across 336 works. Its record leans Christian and argumentative. The largest single share falls in Tertullian's Adversus Marcionem (1,452, "Against Marcion"), and the same author returns with Adversus Praxean (399, "Against Praxeas") and Adversus Hermogenem (292, "Against Hermogenes") — polemics that hammer at what and who deus is. Between and around them sit the classical monuments: Livy's Ab urbe condita (549, "From the Founding of the City") and Cicero's de Natura Deorum (536, "On the Nature of the Gods"), alongside a set of Epistulae. Selections. (357, "Letters. Selections."). The word lives where Rome names its gods and where the Church argues its one God.
The lexica keep the gloss plain. Lewis & Short (A Latin Dictionary, 1879) gives simply "a god, a deity," and dwells on the tangled forms — the vocative singular deus ("deus," the address-form), the nominative plural di or dei ("gods"). de Vaan (Etymological Dictionary of Latin, Brill 2008) glosses it "god, deity" and preserves the oldest surfaces: the archaic deiuos ("deiuos," old Latin "god") of the Duenos inscription and deiva ("deiva," "goddess") from third-century Pisaurum, and heads the family with dea ("goddess") and divus ("a god; godlike").
Two etymology pointers are matched, both recorded rather than reconstructed: de Vaan (Brill 2008) and Ernout-Meillet (Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine, DELL, 1932; 4th ed. 1959) each treat deus directly, though the record carries their entries as references without spelling out a root.
The cited passages are all Livy, book by book — deum, deos, di, deo ("of gods, the gods, gods, to a god"), the noun turning through its cases as the historian counts the gods of early Rome.
When a word names both a crowd of Roman gods and the single God of the apologists, is it one word, or two wearing the same letters?
Witnesses: de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin (Brill 2008) · Lewis & Short, A Latin Dictionary (1879) · Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine (DELL, 1932; 4th ed. 1959)
Densest 12 of 336 attested works shown, by occurrences per 10,000 attested tokens.
1. deus — de Vaan
2. dĕus — Lewis & Short
dĕus, i (
but, dee,Tert. adv. Marc. 1, 29; Prud. Hamart. 931; cf. Prob. Inst. Art. 532, p. 340. The nom. plur. is di and dei; dii is freq. in MSS., but prob. indicates only the length of the ī. Di alone is found in Verg. and Hor.; di and dei indifferently in post-Aug. poets.—Gen.: deōrum and deum. —Poet. also, divum or divom, Enn. ap. Varr. L. L. 5, 10, 65; Cic. N. D. 2, 2, 4; Ter. Ad. 4, 7, 28; Verg. A. 1, 46 et saep.; Hor. Od. 1, 2, 25 al.—Dat.: dis or diis, usually monosyl.; and, deis, mostly postAug.; also,
DIBVS,Inscr. Orell. 1307; 1676; 3091; 3413;
and DIIBVS,ib. 2118; 4608.—As monosyllable, deus, Plaut. Am. prol. 53: deorum, dissyl. id. ib. 45;
but dĭī,Luc. 4, 493:
dĕī,id. 4, 519:
dĕīs,Val. Fl. 7, 29), m. root in Sanscr.: dī, div- (dyu-), to gleam: dyāus (Gr. zeu/s), heaven: dévas, God; cf. Gr. dios, eu)di/a; but not qeo/s, Curt. Gr. etym. 503 sqq.. a god, a deity (for syn. cf.: divus, numen).
di,Ter. And. 1, 4, 5; id. Phorm. 5, 1, 13:
di boni,id. And. 2, 2, 1; id. Eun. 2, 1, 19; Cic. Att. 6, 6 fin. al.:
di immortales,Plaut. Am. 1, 1, 299; id. Ep. 5, 1, 21; Ter. Eun. 2, 2, 1; Cic. Fin. 2, 28 fin. et saep.; cf.:
pro di immortales,Plaut. Am. 2, 2, 190; Ter. Ad. 3, 4, 1:
di magni,Ov. F. 6, 187:
di deaeque, Plin. H. N. prooem. § 24: di vostram fidem,Plaut. Poen. 4, 2, 78; id. Trin. 2, 4, 190; Ter. And. 4, 3, 1; 4, 4, 5 al. (for which in full:
di, obsecro vostram fidem,Plaut. Am. 5, 1, 78); cf.:
pro deum atque hominum fidem,Ter. And. 1, 5, 2; id. Hec. 2, 1, 1 al.;
and ellipt.: pro deum immortalium,Ter. Ph. 2, 3, 4.—
di bene vortant,Plaut. Trin. 2, 4, 101; Ter. Ad. 4, 7, 10;
and in the order: di vortant bene,Ter. Eun. 2, 3, 98; id. Hec. 1, 2, 121:
utinam di faxint ut, ne, etc.,Plaut. Am. 2, 1, 85; Ter. Heaut. 1, 1, 109; cf.:
ita di deaeque faxint,id. Hec. 1, 2, 27:
di faciant, ut, ne, etc.,Cic. Verr. 2, 3, 35; 2, 5, 13:
di prohibeant,Ter. And. 3, 3, 36; cf.: di averruncent, Att. ap. Cic. Att. 9, 2 A, 1; and:
quod di omen avertant,the gods forbid, Cic. Phil. 3, 14, 35:
di melius faciant,Plaut. Ps. 1, 3, 81; cf.:
di melius duint,Ter. Ph. 5, 8, 16:
di meliora ferant,Tib. 3, 4, 1:
di meliora velint,Ov. M. 7, 37;
also ellipt.: di meliora,God forbid! Cic. Phil. 8, 3, 9; id. de Sen. 14, 47; Liv; 39, 10 et saep.;
and di melius,Ov. H. 3, 125; Sen. Ep. 98 med.:
dent tibi di multa bona,Plaut. Poen. 1, 1, 80; cf. id. ib. 3, 3, 54; id. Trin. 5, 2, 28; Ter. Ad. 5, 9, 21:
di te servassint,Plaut. As. 3, 3, 64; id. Trin. 2, 2, 103 et saep.:
di me servatum volunt,Plaut. Men. 5, 9, 61; id. Trin. 4, 3, 69 et saep.:
di te perduint (perdant),Plaut. As. 2, 4, 61; id. Ps. 4, 7, 129; Ter. Eun. 2, 3, 10 al.; cf.:
di te eradicent,Ter. And. 4, 4, 22; id. Heaut. 3, 3, 28; and:
di tibi male faciant,id. Phorm. 2, 3, 47; Cic. Fam. 11, 21 al.:
di te ament (amabunt), as a form of greeting,God bless you! Plaut. Most. 1, 4, 27; 3, 2, 28; id. Men. 2, 2, 6 al.:
ita me di ament (amabunt),so help me the gods! Plaut. Poen. 1, 3, 30; Ter. And. 5, 4, 44 et saep.; cf.:
ita me di bene ament,id. Eun. 4, 1, 1; id. Phorm. 1, 3, 13:
per deos immortales,by the immortal gods! Cic. Phil. 3, 14:
per deos,id. Off. 2, 2 al.:
cum dis volentibus,by the gods' help, Enn. in Cic. Off. 1, 12, 38 (Ann. v. 207 ed. Vahl.); Plaut. Mil. 4, 8, 41; id. Pers. 3, 1, 4; cf.:
dis volentibus,God willing, Sall. 3, 14, 19:
si dis placet,if it please the gods, Plaut. Capt. 2, 3, 94;
for which: si di volent,id. Poen. 4, 2, 88;
more freq.: si dis placet, ironically or contemptuously,an't please the gods; if you please; forsooth, Ter. Eun. 5, 3, 10; Cic. Pis. 16 fin.; Liv. 6, 40; 34, 32; Quint. 8, 3, 44; Flor. 3, 4, 1 al.:
di hominesque,i. e. all the world, every body, Cic. Fam. 1, 9, 19; Sall. C. 15, 4; Liv. 3, 17; 3, 19 al.:
dis hominibusque invitis,in spite of every body, Cic. Vatin. 16, 38; id. Q. Fr. 3, 2, 1.—
ducente deo (sc. Venere),Verg. A. 2, 632:
audentes deus ipse juvat (sc. Fortuna),Ov. M. 10, 586; Macr. Sat. 3, 8; cf. of Aurora, Cat. ap. Cic. N. D. 1, 28 fin.;
of Alecto,Verg. A. 7, 498 (but in all these passages, some regard deus as absol., = to\ qei=on, the divinity, Heyne ad Verg. A. 2, 632).—
Deus summus,Lact. 1, 1:
omnipotens,Vulg. Gen. 17, 1 et passim. Also of the Son of God, God the Son, Christ:
Deus pater et Deus filius,Lact. 4, 29, 1; Vulg. Johan. 1, 1 al.
te in dicendo semper putavi deum,Cic. Or. 1, 23, 106; cf. id. ib. 2, 42, 179:
facio te apud illum deum,Ter. Ad. 4, 1, 19:
audiamus Platonem quasi quendam deum philosophorum,Cic. N. D. 2, 12; cf.:
deus ille noster Plato,id. Att. 4, 16, 3:
ubi nunc nobis deus ille magister, Eryx,Verg. A. 5, 392:
deos quoniam propius contingis (i. e. Augustus and Maecenas),Hor. S. 2, 6, 52:
deus sum, si hoc ita est,Ter. Hec. 5, 4, 3; cf.:
sum deus,Plaut. Curc. 1, 3, 11; esp. of great patrons or protectors, a guardian god:
Lentulus consul, parens deus, salus nostrae vitae,Cic. post Red. ad Quir. 5, 11:
Lentulus, cujus pater deus ac parens nominis mei,id. Sest. 69, 144.—Hence freq. in inscriptions and on coins of the period of the empire, as an epithet of the emperors:
DEO AUG.,Inscr. Orell. 609 et saep.; cf. Nem. Venat. 71; Calp. Ecl. 7.
6 of 13,880 attestations shown.
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.