The corpus record — Latin

orbus

deprived of, childless, orphaned

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

Where it lives

Panegyricus dictus Manlio Theodoro consuli 3 · 13.95/10k
Ausonii de XII Caesaribus per Suetonium Tranquillum scriptis 1 · 11.76/10k
Tacitus 2 · 6.48/10k
de raptu Proserpinae 4 · 5.74/10k
De Fide Catholica 1 · 5.19/10k
Panegyricus de sexto consulatu Honorii Augusti 2 · 4.81/10k
Helvius Pertinax 1 · 3.85/10k
Culex, Appendix Vergiliana 1 · 3.83/10k
De Consolatione ad Polybium 2 · 3.53/10k
In Rufinum 2 · 3.49/10k
Maximus et Balbinus 1 · 3.18/10k
de bello Gildonico 1 · 3.16/10k

Densest 12 of 102 attested works shown, by occurrences per 10,000 attested tokens.

What it meant

1. orbus — de Vaan

orbus 'deprived of, childless, orphaned' [adj. ο/α] (Ρ1.+) Derivatives: orbitas 'childlessness' (P1-+), orbitudo 'bereavement' (Pac.+), orbare 'to deprive of, rob' (Pac.+); orbificare 'to bereave of children' (Acc.+). Pit. *orfo- 'heir, orphan'. PIE *h3orbh-o- 'turning, what/who is turned over' > 'inheritance / heir'. IE cognates: Olr. orb [m.] 'heir; inheritance' < *orbo-y orb{b)e, orpe [n.] 'inheritance' < … — [de Vaan, s.v. orbus, p. 447]

2. orbus — Lewis & Short

orbus, a, um, adj.kindr. with Gr. o)rfano/s; cf. Fest. p. 183 Müll.,

I bereaved, bereft, of parents or children; parentless, fatherless, childless (class.; cf. pupillus).

I Lit.: senex, Cic. Par. 5, 2, 39; cf.: parens liberorum an orbus sit, Quint. 5, 10, 26; 7, 4, 23: filii mei, te incolumi, orbi non erunt, Cic. Q. Fr. 1, 3, 10.—With gen.: Memnonis orba mei venio, Ov. M. 13, 595.—With ab: a totidem natis orba, Ov. H. 6, 156.—Of beasts: liberis orbae oves, Plaut. Capt. 4, 2, 38.—Subst.: orba, ae, f., an orphan: ut orbae, qui sunt genere proximi, iis nubant, Ter. Phorm. 1, 2, 75; Quint. 7, 4, 24.—Also, = vidua, a widow: censa civium capita centum quatuor milia . . . praeter orbos orbasque, orphans and widows, Liv. 3, 3, 9 (for which: praeter pupillos et viduas, id. Epit. 59; cf. Becker's Antiq. 2, 2, p. 205).—

II Transf., deprived, bereft, destitute, devoid of any thing, esp. of something precious: arce et urbe orba sum, Enn. ap. Cic. Tusc. 3, 19, 44 (Trag. v. 114 Vahl.): plebs orba tribunis, Cic. Leg. 3, 3, 9: ab optimatibus contio, id. Fl. 23, 54: rebus omnibus, id. Fam. 4, 13, 3: forum litibus, Hor. C. 4, 2, 43: regio animantibus orba, without inhabitants, Ov. M. 1, 72: verba viribus, id. H. 21, 142: fide pectora, id. Am. 2, 2, 42: orbus omnibus sensibus, Vell. 1, 5, 4: cubile, empty, widowed couch, Cat. 66, 21: palmites, bereft of buds, Col. 4, 27. —

(b) With gen.: orbus auxilique opumque, Plaut. Rud. 2, 3, 19: pedum, Lucr. 5, 840: luminis, Ov. M. 3, 518.

In the wild

orbos Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae 14.6.22
orbi Seneca, Medea 1
orbi Ovid, Metamorphoses 2.73
orbi Claudian, Carminum minorum corpusculum 25.60
orbi Cato, De agri cultura 18
orbi Martial, Epigrammata 9.20.5

6 of 212 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. orbus (scan p. 447; entry #1217). Root candidates: *orfo-, *orbiio-.
Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine Treated in Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine s.v. orbus (scan p. 490; entry #7944).

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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.