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The corpus record — Latin

impius

impius · adj

without reverence

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

What it meant

impĭus — Lewis & Short

impĭus (inp-), a, um, adj.2. in-pius,

I without reverence or respect for God, one's parents, or one's country; irreverent, ungodly, undutiful, unpatriotic; abandoned, wicked, impious (rare but class.; cf.: nefarius, sacrilegus).
I Lit.: me fugerat, deorum immortalium has esse in impios et consceleratos poenas certissimas constitutas, Cic. Pis. 20, 46: numero impiorum et sceleratorum haberi, Caes. B. G. 6, 13, 7; cf.: scelerosus atque impius, Ter. Eun. 4, 3, 1: (deos) piorum et impiorum habere rationem, Cic. Leg. 2, 7, 15: impius ne audeto placare donis iram deorum, id. ib. 2, 9, 22: dixerunt impium pro parricida, Quint. 8, 6, 30; 7, 1, 52: impius erga parentes, Suet. Rhet. 6: impium, qui dividere nolit cum fratre, Quint. 7, 1, 45: necesse est, iste, qui affinem fortunis spoliare conatus est, impium se esse fateatur, Cic. Quint. 6, 26: (Danaides) Impiae sponsos potuere duro Perdere ferro! Hor. C. 3, 11, 31: Titanes, id. ib. 3, 4, 42; cf.: cohors Gigantum, id. ib. 2, 19, 22: Saturnus, id. ib. 2, 17, 22: miles, Verg. E. 1, 71: Carthago, Hor. C. 4, 8, 17: gens, Verg. G. 2, 537: di, invoked in imprecations, Tac. A. 16, 31: poëtae, i. e. accursed, Cat. 14, 7: expiari impium non posse, Varr. L. L. 6, § 30 Müll.—Sup.: impiissimus filius, Dig. 28, 5, 46, § 1; Aus. Grat. Act. 17.—
II Transf., of inanim. or abstr. things (mostly poet.): si impias propinquorum manus effugeris, Cic. Rep. 6, 12; so, manus, Hor. Epod. 3, 1: cervix, id. C. 3, 1, 17: pectora Thracum, id. Epod. 5, 13: ratis, id. C. 1, 3, 23; id. Epod. 10, 14: ensis, Ov. M. 14, 802: tura, id. H. 14, 26: Tartara, Verg. A. 5, 733: bellum injustum atque impium, Cic. Rep. 2, 17: caedes, Hor. C. 3, 24, 25: proelia, id. ib. 2, 1, 30: furor, Verg. A. 1, 294: facta, Ov. H. 10, 100: verba, Tib. 1, 3, 52: tumultus, Hor. C. 4, 4, 46: clamor, id. ib. 1, 27, 6: fama, Verg. A. 4, 298: vivacitas, Quint. 6 praef. § 3. — Prov.: Impia sub dulci melle venena latent, Ov. Am. 1, 8, 104.— Plur. as substt.
(a) impii, ōrum, m., wicked, abandoned men (opp. innoxii), Plaut. Rud. 1, 3, 11.—
(b) impĭa, ōrum, n., profane words, impious sayings: impia et illicita dicere, Gell. 1, 15, 17. —
B In partic., impia herba, a plant, perh. the French everlasting, Gnaphalium Gallicum, Plin. 24, 19, 113, § 173.—Adv.: im-pĭē, irreligiously, undutifully, wickedly: quae (astra) qui videat, non solum indocte, sed etiam impie faciat, si deos esse neget, Cic. N. D. 2, 16, 44: impie commissum, id. Leg. 2, 9, 22: impie ingratus esse, id. Tusc. 5, 2, 6: fecisti, Quint. 7, 1, 53: loqui, i. e. treasonably, Suet. Dom. 10: deserere regem, Curt. 5, 12.—Sup.: impiissime, Salv. de Avar. 3.

In the wild

6 of 586 attestations shown.

Where it came from

No etymology authority pointer is recorded for this lemma yet — an honest gap, not an omission.

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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.