The corpus record — Latin

scaevus

left, inauspicious

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

Where it lives

Pescennius Niger 1 · 4.39/10k
Epistularum 3 · 3.3/10k
Historiae 1 · 2.46/10k
Stichus 1 · 1.61/10k
Troades 1 · 1.47/10k
Casina 1 · 1.29/10k
De Praescriptionibus Hereticorum 1 · 1.2/10k
Pseudolus 1 · 0.9/10k
Metamorphoses 3 · 0.56/10k
Apologia 1 · 0.47/10k
Excerpta Controversiae 1 · 0.47/10k
De Beneficiis 1 · 0.22/10k

Densest 12 of 16 attested works shown, by occurrences per 10,000 attested tokens.

What it meant

1. scaevus — de Vaan

scaevus 'left, inauspicious' [adj, o/a] (Vitr.+) Derivatives: scaeva 'omen; left-hand side* (P1.+), scaevola 'phallus-like charm* (Varro); obscaevare 'to constitute a good or bad omen' (PI.). Pit. *skaiwo*. PIE *skeh2-i-uo~ 'shaded; left'. IE cognates: Gr. σκαιός 'left' < *skaittos; Skt. — [de Vaan, s.v. scaevus, p. 555]

2. scaevus — Lewis & Short

scaevus, a, um, adj.kindred with Sanscr. savya, laevus, sinister, as the Gr. skaio/s and the Germ. schief, oblique,

I left, that is on the left, towards the left side (rare; most freq. in Appul.; syn. laevus, sinister).

I Lit.: itinera portarum, i. e. running from right to left, Vitr. 1, 5, 2: iter, Serv. Verg. A. 3, 351.—

II Trop.

A Awkward, perverse, stupid, silly: scaevus profecto et caecus animi forem, si, etc., Gell. 12, 13, 4: mulier, App. M. 9, p. 223, 22: scaevus iste Romulus, Sall. H. Fragm. 1, 41, 5 Dietsch: fabula, Paul. Nol. Carm. 11, 44.—

B Of fortune, unfavorable, untoward, unlucky: fortunam scaevam an saevam verius dixerim, App. M. 2, p. 120, 21: praesagium, id. ib. 10, p. 247; 7, p. 194, 39.—Sup.: scaevissimum somnium, App. M. 4, p. 154, 23.—Hence, subst.: scaeva, ae, f., a sign or token in the sky (observed by a Roman on his left; v. laevus), an omen: bonae scaevae causă...Ea dicta ab scaevā id est sinistră, quod quae sinistra sunt, bona auspicia existimantur...a Graeco est, quod hi sinistram vocant skaia/n, Varr. L. L. 7, § 97 Müll.; cf. Fest. p. 325 ib.: bona scaeva est mihi, Plaut. Ps. 4, 7, 39; so, bona, id. Stich. 5, 2, 24: canina scaeva, taken from the barking of a dog, id. Cas. 5, 4, 4.

3. Scaevus — Walde–Hofmann

Scaevus, -a, -um „link, ungünstig“ (seit Plaut. (bona scaeva „gutes Vorzeichen“], ebenso obscaevó Pseud. 1138), scaevitàs, -atis f. ,ungünstiges Vorzeichen“ (seit Gell): scaerus = gr. oxa(F)óg ds. (vgl. Anıdg — lat. laeeus), scaeritäs — gr. anauörng (Vanidek 317, Curtius 166, Brugmann Il? 1, 451); dazu vl. ohne s mir. ciotón, ciotóg 486 scäla — scalpd. „die Linke“, eiotach ,linkshündig^, kymr. chwith ,lnk* (Foy IF. … — [Walde–Hofmann, s.v. Scaevus, p. 1391]

In the wild

scaevus Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae 12.13.4
scaeva Vitruvius, De Architectura 1.5.2
scaeva Ausonius, Epistularum 30.44
scaeva Seneca, Troades 1
scaevo Ausonius, Epistularum 1.p2
scaeui Apuleius, Apologia 92

6 of 20 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. scaevus (scan p. 555; entry #1554).
Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine Treated in Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine s.v. scaeuus (scan p. 612; entry #10032).
Walde-Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch Treated in Walde-Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch s.v. Scaevus (scan pp. 1391-1392; entry #2452). Root candidates: *kittu-, *sewio-.

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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.