LOGOI

The corpus record — Latin

maestus

maestus · adj

full of sadness, sad, sorrowful, afflicted, dejected, melancholy

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

Where it lives

  • Cupido cruciatur 4 · 54.27/10k
  • Parentalia 12 · 46.17/10k
  • Commemoratio professorum Burdigalensium 7 · 26.64/10k
  • Epicedion in Patrem 1 · 26.39/10k
  • Phaedra 10 · 14.06/10k
  • Thebais 66 · 10.56/10k
  • Argonautica 39 · 10.49/10k
  • Carmina 12 · 9.32/10k
  • Hercules 7 · 9.2/10k
  • Appendix Vergiliana 3 · 8.65/10k
  • Oedipus 5 · 8.43/10k
  • Ephemeris id est totius diei negotium 1 · 7.71/10k

Densest 12 of 121 attested works shown, by occurrences per 10,000 attested tokens.

What it meant

maestus — Lewis & Short

maestus (moest-), a, um, adj.maereo, q. v.,

I full of sadness, sad, sorrowful, afflicted, dejected, melancholy (class.).
I Lit.: quid vos maestos tam tristesque esse conspicor? Plaut. Bacch. 4, 4, 18: id misera maestast, sibi eorum evenisse inopiam, id. Rud. 2, 3, 67; Cic. Div. 1, 28, 59: cum immolanda Iphigenia tristis Calchas esset, maestior Ulixes, etc., id. Or. 22, 74: maestus ac sordidatus senex, id. de Or. 2, 47, 195; id. Fam. 4, 6, 2: maestus ac sollicitus, Hor. S. 1, 2, 3: maestissimus Hector, Verg. A. 2, 270.—Of inanim. and abstr. things: maesto et conturbato vultu, Auct. Her. 3, 15, 27: maesta ac lugentia castra, Just. 18, 7: maestam attonitamque videre urbem, Juv. 11, 199: maesta manus, Ov. F. 4, 454: horrida pro maestis lanietur pluma capillis, id. Am. 2, 6, 5: comae, id. F. 4, 854: collum, id. Tr. 3, 5, 15: timor, Verg. A. 1, 202.—Poet., with inf.: animam maestam teneri, Stat. Th. 10. 775.—
II Transf. (poet. and in post-Aug. prose).
A Like tristis, gloomy, severe by nature: ille neci maestum mittit Oniten, Verg. A. 12, 514 (naturaliter tristem, severum, quem Graeci skuqrwpo\n dicunt a)ge/laston, Serv.): tacitā maestissimus irā, Val. Fl. 5, 568: oratores maesti et inculti, gloomy, Tac. Or. 24.—
B In gen., connected with mourning; containing, causing, or showing sadness; sad, unhappy, unlucky: vestis, a mourning garment, Prop. 3, 4 (4, 5), 13: tubae, id. 4 (5), 11, 9: funera, Ov. F. 6, 660; cf.: ossa parentis Condidimus terrā maestasque sacravimus aras, Verg. A. 5, 48: a laevā maesta volavit avis, the bird of ill omen, Ov. Ib. 128: venter, exhausted with hunger, Lucil. ap. Non. 350, 33 (enectus fame, Non.).—Hence, adv., in two forms. *
A maestē, with sadness, saaly, sorrowfully: maeste, hilariter, Auct. Her. 3, 14, 24.—*
B maestĭter, in a way to indicate sorrow: maestiter vestitae, Plaut. Rud. 1, 5, 6.

In the wild

6 of 602 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. maestus (scan p. 401; entry #6377).

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.