The corpus record — Latin

nebula

mist, fog

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

Where it lives

Hamartigenia 3 · 4.69/10k
Saturae 2 · 4.42/10k
Eclogarum Liber 1 · 3.65/10k
Ab urbe condita, books 26-30 - 29 4 · 3.26/10k
Phoenissae 1 · 2.45/10k
Carmina 3 · 2.26/10k
De Rerum Natura 11 · 2.26/10k
Liber De Persona et Duabus Naturis Contra Eutychen Et Nestorium 1 · 1.71/10k
Oedipus 1 · 1.69/10k
De Bello Hispaniensi 1 · 1.65/10k
Thyestes 1 · 1.59/10k
Metamorphoses 12 · 1.55/10k

Densest 12 of 56 attested works shown, by occurrences per 10,000 attested tokens.

What it meant

1. nebula — de Vaan

nebula 'mist, fog' [f. a\ (P1.+) Derivatives: nebulosus 'foggy' (Cato+), nebula 'worthless person, scoundrel' (Ter.+). Pit *nefela-. PIE *nebh-e-lo- 'small cloud'. IE cognates: MW nyfel 'clouds', Gr. νεφέλη 'cloud', OIc. nifi 'darkness, haze', njol 4night\ OHG nebul, OS nebal 'darkness, haze'. Bibl.: WH II: 151, EM 434, IEW 315, Meiser 1998: 103, LIV l.*nebh-. -► imher, nimbus neeto, -ere cto weave, twine together' … — [de Vaan, s.v. nebula, p. 418]

2. nĕbŭla — Lewis & Short

nĕbŭla, ae, f.like nubes; Sanscr. nabhas; Lat. aër, caelum; Gr. nefe/lh,

I mist, vapor, fog, smoke, exhalation (syn.: nubes, nimbus).

I Lit.: fluviis ex omnibus et simul ipsa Surgere de terrā nebulas aestumque videmus, etc., Lucr. 6, 477; Verg. A. 8, 258: tenuem exhalat nebulam, id. G. 2, 217. —Poet., of the clouds: nebulae pluviique rores, Hor. C. 3, 3, 56; Verg. A. 1, 412; 439 (for which, nubes, id. ib. 587; Ov. M. 6, 21. —Of smoke, Ov. Tr. 5, 5, 31.—Of any thing soft or transparent: nebula haud est mollis, atque hujus est, Plaut. Cas. 4, 4, 21: desine Inter ludere virgines Et stellis nebulam spargere candidis, Hor. C. 3, 15, 6.— Prov.: nebulae cyathus, of any thing worthless, trifling, Plaut. Poen. 1, 2, 62.— —Personified = Nephele, Hyg. Fab. 2 and 3.—

B Transf., a foggy mist, a vapor, cloud: pulveris nebula, Lucr. 5, 253: nebulae dolia summa tegunt, Ov. F. 5, 269: pinguem nebulam vomuere lucernae, Pers. 5, 181; Sil. 6, 281: per nebulam audire, aut scire aliquid, to hear or know a thing indistinctly, Plaut. Ps. 1, 5, 47; id. Capt. 5, 4, 26 (for which: quasi per caliginem videre, Cic. Phil. 12, 2, 2).—

2 A thin, transparent substance; of a thin garment: aequum est induere nuptam ventum textilem, Palam prostare nudam in nebulā lineā, Laber. ap. Petr. 55; of a thin plate of metal, Mart. 8, 33, 3.—

II Trop., darkness, obscurity: erroris nebula, Juv. 10, 4: nebulae quaestionum, obscure, puzzling questions, Gell. 8, 10 in lemm.: suspicionum nebulae, vague suspicions, Amm. 14, 1, 4.—Of something empty, trifling, worthless: grande locuturi nebulas Helicone legunto, Pers. 5, 7 (for which: nubes et inania captare, Hor. A. P. 230).

In the wild

6 of 141 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. nebula (scan p. 418; entry #1132). Root candidates: *nefela-, *nebh-.
Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine Treated in Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine s.v. nebula (scan p. 458; entry #7372).

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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.