The corpus record — Latin

fatuus

fatuus · adj

foolish

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

Where it lives

Apocolocyntosis 2 · 7.38/10k
Commodus Antoninus 1 · 2.89/10k
Alexander Severus 3 · 2.81/10k
Pro Rege Deiotaro 1 · 2.56/10k
De Patientia 1 · 2.21/10k
Eunuchus 2 · 1.84/10k
Carmina 2 · 1.55/10k
Amphitruo 1 · 1.02/10k
Suasoriae 1 · 0.97/10k
Adversus Hermogenem 1 · 0.9/10k
Epigrammata 5 · 0.89/10k
Contra Symmachum 1 · 0.83/10k

Densest 12 of 27 attested works shown, by occurrences per 10,000 attested tokens.

What it meant

1. fătŭus — Lewis & Short

fătŭus, a, um, adj.root fa, cf. for; properly, garrulous,

I foolish, silly, simple (class.; syn.: stultus, stolidus, insipiens, desipiens, stupidus, hebes, ineptus, insulsus, absurdus).

I Adj.: ego me ipsum stultum existimo, fatuum esse non opinor, Afran. ap. Isid. Orig. 10, 246: stulti, stolidi. fatui, fungi, bardi, blenni, buccones, Plaut. Bacch. 5, 1, 2: fatuus est, insulsus, Ter. Eun. 5, 9, 49: non modo nequam et improbus, sed etiam fatuus et amens es, Cic. Deiot. 7, 21: monitor, id. de Or. 2, 24, 99: homo, Poët. ap. Cic. de Or. 2, 67, 274: puer, Cic. Att. 6, 6, 3: nisi plane fatui sint, id. Fin. 2, 22, 70: mores, Plaut. Trin. 2, 2, 18.—

B Poet. transf.

1 Insipid, tasteless, of food: ut sapiant fatuae, fabrorum prandia, betae, Mart. 13, 13.—

2 Awkward, clumsy, unwieldy: illa bipennem Insulsam et fatuam dextra tenebat, Juv. 6, 658.—

II Subst.: fătŭus, i, m., and fătŭa, ae, f., a fool, simpleton, a jester, buffoon.

A In gen., one who acts foolishly: paene ecfregisti, fatue, foribus cardines, Plaut. Am. 4, 2, 6; Cat. 83, 2; Juv. 9, 8.—

B Esp., kept by Romans of rank for their amusement: Harpasten, uxoris meae fatuam, scis hereditarium onus in domo mea remansisse ... si quando fatuo delectari volo, me rideo, Sen. Ep. 50, 2; Lampr. Comm. 4, 3.—Hence, fătŭe, adv., foolishly, absurdly: plerumque studio loquendi fatue modo accedendum, Quint. 6, 4, 8 dub. (Spald. and Zumpt, fatui); Tert. adv. Herm. 10; id. de Pat. 6. —Hence,

2. Fātŭus — Lewis & Short

Fātŭus, i. m.,

I another name for the prophesying Faunus; also called Fātŭ-ellus; while his sister, Fauna, who prophesied to females, was also called Fātŭa and Fātŭella, Lact. 1, 22, 9; Arn. 5, 18; Macr. S. 1, 12; Mart. Cap. 2, § 167; Just. 43, 1; Plin. 27, 12, 83, § 117 (dub.; Jan. fatuos).

In the wild

fatui Cicero, de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum 2.70
fatuum Apicius, De Re Coquinaria 4.145
fatuum Petronius, Satyricon 46
fatuum Seneca the Elder, Suasoriae 2.22
fatue Martial, Epigrammata 6.8.6
fatuum Historia Augusta, Alexander Severus 17

6 of 41 attestations shown.

Where it came from

Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine Treated in Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine s.v. Fatuus (scan p. 244; entry #3777).

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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.