LOGOI

The corpus record — Latin

serius1

serius1

important, serious

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

What it meant

1. serius — de Vaan

serius 'important, serious' [adj. o/a] (Naev,+) Pit. *ser-jo-. PIE *seh r ro- 'slow, heavy'. Schrijver suscribes to WH and IEW's etymology as *swer- 'weighty'. This begs the question of the reflex of *sw- in Latin: *swe- yields so-, *sw<5- yields sua-, and suesco seems to show that *swe- yields sue-. This means that serius is more likely to reflect *se- without *-w-. The long vowel can hardly stem from compensatory … — [de Vaan, s.v. serius, p. 570]

2. sērĭus — Lewis & Short

sērĭus, a, um, adj.perh. for sevrius; root sev-, severus; Gr. se/bas, semno/s,

I grave, earnest, serious, opp. to sportive, jocular (class. only of things; severus, both of persons and things): res (opp. jocosae), Cic. Off. 1, 37, 134: sermo (opp. jocus), Auct. Her. 3, 14, 25: non res potissimum seria, sed quasi ludus ac jocus, Lact. 2, 18, 3: graves seriaeque res, Cic. Off. 1, 29, 103; so, res serias omnis extollo in alium diem, Plaut. Poen. 2, 51: ait rem seriam Velle agere mecum, Ter. Eun. 3, 3, 7; Liv. 23, 7 fin.: dies religiosus ad agendum quicquam rei seriae, id. 26, 17 al.: verba, Tib. 3, 6, 52; cf. Hor. A. P. 107: quaestiones, Suet. Calig. 32: carmina, Plin. Pan. 54, 2: curae, id. ib. 82 fin.: partes dierum, id. ib. 49 fin.: tempus, id. Ep. 4, 25, 3 et saep.: opinor hercle hodie quod ego dixi per jocum, Id eventurum esse et severum et serium, Plaut. Poen. 5, 3, 51: si aliquid serium, etc., Quint. 6, 3, 16: nec quicquam grave ac serium, Tac. A. 3, 50 fin.—With sup.: verba seria dictu, Hor. A. P. 107.—As subst.: sērĭum, i, and more freq. sērĭa, ōrum, n., earnestness, seriousness; serious matters or discourse (often opp. jocus); sing.: si quid per jocum Dixi, nolito in serium convortere, Plaut. Poen. 5, 5, 42: itaque res in serium versa est, Curt. 5, 7, 10: nihil ad serium, Tac. A. 6, 14.—Plur.: quīcum joca, seria, ut dicitur, Cic. Fin. 2, 26, 85: joca atque seria cum humillimis agere, Sall. J. 96, 2: cum his seria ac jocos celebrare, Liv. 1, 4 fin.: per seria per jocos, Tac. A. 2, 13: sed tamen amoto quaeramus seria ludo, Hor. S. 1, 1, 27; 2, 2, 125; id. A. P. 226; Ov. F. 5, 341 al.: mala, Hor. A. P. 451: mea (opp. lusus), Ov. Tr. 1, 8, 31: (Marsus) seria partitur in tria genera, Quint. 6, 3, 108: ille seria nostra, ille deliciae, Plin. Ep. 8, 1, 2.—Of persons, for severus (ante- and post-class.): non ego te novi tristem servum, serium? Afran. ap. Non. 33, 33: amicos serios aspernatur, App. Mag. 98, p. 336, 9: Solon, id. ib. 9, p. 278 fin.; Amm. 26, 2, 2; 29, 6, 1; Treb. Claud. 12, 5; Mam. Grat. Act. 12, 2; Quint. Decl. 15, 3.—Hence, adv. in two forms.
A sērĭō, in earnest, seriously (mostly anteclass.; a favorite word of Plaut.; not in Cic. or Cæs.): nec joco nec serio, Plaut. Am. 3, 2, 25: si quid dictum est per jocum, Non aequom est id te serio praevortier, id. ib. 3, 2, 40: an id joco dixisti? equidem serio ac vero ratus, id. ib. 3, 3, 9; so (opp. joco) id. Bacch. 1, 1, 42; Ter. Heaut. 3, 2, 30; Liv. 7, 41, 3: vereor serio, Naev. ap. Charis. p. 195; Plaut. Am. 2, 2, 225; id. Cas. 4, 2, 11; id. Ep. 1, 1, 29; id. Merc. 4, 1, 19; id. Ps. 1, 3, 106; 4, 7, 94; id. Poen. 1, 1, 32; 1, 3, 26; 1, 3, 29; id. Rud. 2, 5, 11; 4, 4, 1; id. Truc. 2, 2, 47; 2, 5, 29; Ter. Eun. 3, 1, 3; 3, 3, 22; id. Ad. 5, 9, 18; Liv. 4, 25 fin.; Quint. 1, 2, 1; 9, 2, 14; Plin. Ep. 2, 20, 10.—
B sērĭē, in earnest, seriously: (post-class.) vultu serie pulcro, Aur. Vict. Epit. 15.

3. sērĭus — Lewis & Short

sērĭus,

I comp. adv., v. 3. sero.

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. serius (scan p. 570; entry #1604). Root candidates: *swer-, *swe-, *se-.
  • Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine Treated in Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine s.v. sérius (scan p. 641; entry #10595). Root candidates: *ser-.

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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.