The corpus record — Latin

fetus

having recently given birth; fertile

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

Where it lives

Carmen Saeculare 1 · 32.36/10k
Fescinnina de nuptiis Honorii Augusti 1 · 18.25/10k
Panegyricus de tertio consulatu Honorii Augusti 2 · 14.47/10k
Georgicon 19 · 13.43/10k
Panegyricus dictus Probino et Olybrio consulibus 2 · 11.75/10k
Eclogues 4 · 8.81/10k
Res Rustica, Books I-IX 65 · 8.26/10k
Oedipus 3 · 5.06/10k
Carminum minorum corpusculum 4 · 4.74/10k
Panegyricus dictus Manlio Theodoro consuli 1 · 4.65/10k
Troades 3 · 4.4/10k
Phaedra 3 · 4.22/10k

Densest 12 of 87 attested works shown, by occurrences per 10,000 attested tokens.

What it meant

1. fetus — de Vaan

fetus 'having recently given birth; fertile' [adj. o/a] (Enn.+) Derivatives: βία 'a female animal which has just given birth' (P1.+), fitura 'breeding, parturition' (Var.+),yeto, -us [m.] 'parturition, breeding, offspring' (P1.+); — [de Vaan, s.v. fetus, p. 231]

2. fētus — Lewis & Short

fētus (foet-), a, um, adj.Part., from † FEO, whence also: fecundus, femina, fenus, felix, that is or was filled with young (syn.: gravidus, praegnans).

I Pregnant, breeding (mostly poet.).

A Lit.: lenta salix feto pecori, Verg. E. 3, 83; 1, 50: vulpes, Hor. C. 3, 27, 5.—

2 Transf.

a Of land, fruitful, productive: (terra) feta parit nitidas fruges, etc., Lucr. 2, 994; cf.: terra feta frugibus et vario leguminum genere, * Cic. N. D. 2, 62, 156: loca palustribus ulvis, Ov. M. 14, 103: regio nec pomo nec uvis, id. P. 1, 7, 13; id. F. 1, 662.—Also of plants: palmites, Col. 3, 21, 3.—

b In gen., filled with any thing, full: machina armis, Verg. A. 2, 238: loca furentibus austris, id. ib. 1, 51: colla serpentis veneno, Sil. 17, 448.—

B Trop., full of.—With abl.: feta furore Megaera, Sil. 13, 592: praecordia bello, id. 17, 380: praecordia irā, id. 11, 203. —With gen.: fetas novales Martis, Claud. Bell. Get. 25; and in a Gr. construction: fetus Gradivo mentem, id. 10, 14.—

II That has brought forth, newly delivered: veniebant fetam amicae gratulatum, Varr. ap. Non. 312, 12: agiles et fetae (opp. tardiores et gravidae), Col. 7, 3 fin.: ursa, Ov. M. 13, 803: lupa, Verg. A. 8, 630: ovis, id. E. 1, 50; Ov. F. 2, 413: qua feta jacebat uxor et infantes ludebant, Juv. 14, 167.—Absol.: insueta gravis temptabunt pabula fetas, Verg. E. 1, 49.

3. fētus — Lewis & Short

fētus (foet-), ūs (

I heteroclit. abl. plur.: fetis, Att. ap. Non. 489, 6, v. in the foll.), m. † feo, v. the preced. art...

I Abstr., a bringing forth, bearing, dropping, hatching of young (rare but class.): pater (Juppiter) curavit, uno ut fetu fieret, at one birth, Plaut. Am. 1, 2, 25: quarum (bestiarum) in fetu et in educatione laborem cum cernimus, Cic. Fin. 3, 19, 63: cornix inauspicatissima fetus tempore, Plin. 10, 12, 14, § 30: secundi fetus pecudes signari oportet, Col. 11, 2, 38.—

B Transf., of plants, a bearing, producing: quae frugibus atque bacis terrae fetu profunduntur, Cic. Leg. 1, 8, 25: periti rerum adseverant, non ferre (Arabiam) tantum annuo fetu (casiae), quantum, etc., Plin. 12, 18, 41, § 83. —

II Concr., young, offspring, progeny, brood (the predom. signif. of the word, in sing. and plur.; esp. freq. in poets; cf.: catulus, pullus, hinnus, hinnuleus): quae (bestiae) multiplices fetus procreant, ut sues, ut canes, his mammarum data est multitudo, Cic. N. D. 2, 51, 128: facile illa (piscium ova) aqua et sustinentur et fetum fundunt, id. ib.: fetus ventri exsecti, Plin. 8, 55, 81, § 217: cervae lactens fetus, a fawn, Ov. M. 6, 637: melliferarum apium, id. ib. 15, 382: ex die emptionis, et fetus pecorum et ancillarum partus ad emptorem pertinent, Paul. Sent. 2, 17, 7: quis (paveat), Germania quos horrida parturit Fetus? the German brood, Hor. C. 4, 5, 27.—So very rarely of human beings: si vitium factum esset, ut (mulier) concipere fetus non posset, Gell. 4, 2, 10.—

2 Transf., of plants, fruit, produce: ager novatus et iteratus, quo meliores fetus possit et grandiores edere, Cic. de Or. 2, 30, 131; cf.: nutriant fetus et aquae salubres Et Jovis aurae, Hor. Carm. Sec. 31: (arbores) crescunt ipsae fetuque gravantur, Lucr. 1, 253; cf. id. 1, 351: Cithaeron frondet viridantibus fetis, Att. ap. Non. 489, 6: arborei, Verg. G. 1, 55: mutatis requiescunt fetibus arva, id. ib. 1, 82; 4, 231: silvae dant alios aliae fetus, id. ib. 2, 442: triticei, Ov. F. 1, 693: gravidi (of grapes), id. M. 8, 294: nucis, i. e. surculus, auricomi, the golden-bough, id. Am. 6, 141; Verg. G. 2, 69: omnis fetus repressus exustusque flos, Cic. Brut. 4, 16.—Of veins of metals: atros fetus chalybis, Sil. 1, 230.—

B Trop.: nec ulla aetate uberior oratorum fetus fuit, progeny, growth, Cic. Brut. 49, 182: animi, production, id. Tusc. 5, 24, 68: dulces Musarum expromere fetus, Cat. 65, 3.

In the wild

fetus Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes 5.68.p2
fetam Vergil, Aeneid 8.630
feta Sidonius Apollinaris, Carmina 2.119
fetus Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 1.1033
fetus Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 10.65.p2
fetus Appendix Vergiliana, Appendix Vergiliana 230

6 of 434 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. fetus (scan p. 231; entry #566).
Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine Treated in Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine s.v. fétus (scan p. 255; entry #3968).

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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.