LOGOI

The corpus record — Latin

mille

mille

thousand

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

What it meant

1. mille — de Vaan

mille 'thousand' [n,; adj, i; sg, indecl, pi, mVlia, milia, gen. milium] (P1.+) Derivatives: mxliarium 'milestone, column, vessel' (Cato+), mTliarius 'of a thousand, belonging to the thousands' (Varro+), mTlie(n)s [adv.] 'a thousand times' (P1.+). minae Pit *srmxeslJ. PIE *sm-ih2-ghes-l-ih2 'having one thousand'. IE cognates: Skt sahasra-, Av. hozajjra- < Ilr. *sajhasra- < PIE *5ΐρ-^έ5ΐο- 'having one thousand'; Gr. … — [de Vaan, s.v. mille, p. 393]

2. mille — Lewis & Short

mille, in the mīlia (or millia;

plur.
I archaic, MEILIA, Inscr. Orell. 3308; abl. sing. milli, Lucil. ap. Gell. 1, 16, and ap. Macr. S. 1, 5), num. adj. Sanscr. root mil-, combine, associate; Gr. o(/milos; cf. miles, a thousand, thousands.
I Lit.
A In gen., sometimes in sing. subst, with gen.; in plur, only subst. with gen.: equites mille viā breviore praemissi, Planc. ap. Cic. Fam. 10, 9, 3: mille et quingentis passibus abesse, Caes. B. G. 1, 22.—With gen.: mille drachumarum Olympicūm, Plaut. Trin. 2, 4, 23: spondeo et mille auri Philippum dotis, id. ib. 5, 2, 34; cf.: mille nummūm, Cic. Phil. 6, 5, 15; id. ap. Gell. 1, 16, 5: mille denariūm, Gell. 1, 16, 9: mille quingentos aeris in censum adferre, Cic. Rep. 2, 22, 40: ibi occiditur mille hominum, Quadrig. ap. Gell. 1, 16, 1: hominum mille versabatur, Cic. Mil. 20, 53.—So with verb in sing., Cic. Att. 4, 16, 14; Plaut. Truc. 2, 6, 4; Ter. Heaut. 3, 3, 40: mille equitum, Caes. B. C. 3, 84; Liv. 21, 61: mille militum, Nep. Milt. 5, 1: plus mille et centum annorum est, Varr. ap. Gell. 1, 16, 3: mille annorum, Plaut. Mil. 4, 2, 87: passuum, Cato ap. Gell. l. l.; Caes. B. G. 1, 25, 5 al.; cf. Zumpt, Gr. § 116.—In plur. with gen.: Thracum mille aut duo milia occidere, Cic. Phil. 14, 5, 12: sexcenta milia mundorum, id. N. D. 1, 34, 96.—Without gen.: censa sunt civium capita centum quadraginta tria milia septingenta quatuor, Liv. 35, 9: sagittarios tria milia numero habebat, Caes. B. C. 3, 4: tot milia, gentes Arma ferunt Italae, Verg. A. 9, 132: decem milia talenta, Hier. in Evang. Matt. 18, 24: quatuor milia, funditores et sagittarii, Liv. 37, 40, 9; cf. id. 37, 40, 11; 38, 38, 13; 37, 58, 4: tritici modios CXX milia polliceri, Caes. B. C. 2, 18, 4; 3, 4, 3: Graecis peditibus mercede conductis, triginta milibus, praepositus, Curt. 3, 9, 2; 9, 3, 21; 5, 1, 41; Liv. 34, 52, 7.—Distributively: in milia aeris asses singulos, on every thousand, Liv. 29, 15.—
B In partic.: mille passus, mille passuum, or simply mille, a thousand paces, i. e. a Roman mile, which is estimated at 1618 English yards, or 142 yards less than the English statute mile: milli passum dixit (sc. Lucilius) pro mille passibus ... aperteque ostendit mille et vocabulum esse et singulari numero dici, Gell. 1, 16, 13; Cic. Att. 4, 16, 4: ultra quadringenta milia, id. ib. 3, 4.—Prov.: mille passuum mora, a mile's delay, i. e. a long delay, Plaut. Truc. 2, 3, 13; cf.: mille passuum commoratu's cantharum, id. Men. 1, 2, 64.—
II Transf., like the Gr. muri/a, a thousand, for innumerable, infinite (mostly poet.): mille pro uno Kaesones exstitisse, Liv. 3, 14, 4; 2, 28, 4: mille trahens varios adverso sole colores, Verg. A. 4, 701: tentat mille modis, Hor. C. 3, 7, 12: mille pericula saevae urbis, Juv. 3, 8; 12, 46: quomodo persequatur unus mille, Vulg. Deut. 32, 30. —Plur.: ante milia annorum, Plin. 14 praef. 1, § 3: milia tumulorum, Prud. cont. Symm. 1, 516: erat numerus eorum milia milium, Vulg. Apoc. 5, 11; so, mille alia, alia mille, innumerable others, Quint. 2, 15, 23; Sen. Ep. 24, 14.

In the wild

6 of 4,726 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. mille (scan pp. 393-394; entry #1050). Root candidates: *sajhasra-.
  • Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine Treated in Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine s.v. mille (scan p. 427; entry #6854).

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.