LOGOI

The corpus record — Latin

sexus

sexus

gender, sex

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

What it meant

1. sexus — de Vaan

sexus 'gender, sex' [m. u] (PL+; n. lx in PL Rud.\07) Derivatives: secus [n.; only nom.acc] 'sex' (Sis.+) (always used with adj. muliebre, femineum, virile). sica Secus seems the more original formation, but it is strange that the older texts only know sexus. The modern meaning of sectio 'division' suggests that sec/xus might derive from secare 4to sever', but the morphology remains unclear: does sextis go back to … — [de Vaan, s.v. sexus, p. 574]

2. sexus — Lewis & Short

sexus, ūs (

I abl. plur. sexibus, Spart. Hadr. 18, 10 al.; but sexubus, Jul. Val. Rer. G. Alex. 1, 36), m., or sĕcus, indecl. n. root sec- of seco; hence properly, a division, segment.
I A sex, male or female (of men and beasts).
(a) Form sexus: hominum genus et in sexu consideratur, virile an muliebre sit, Cic. Inv. 1, 24, 35; cf.: natus ambiguo inter marem ac feminam sexu infans, Liv. 27, 11; and: mare et femineum sexus, App de Mundo, c. 20, p. 66 med.: feminarum sexus, Plin. 7, 52, 53, § 175: virilis sexus, Pac. ap. Fest. p. 334 Müll. (Trag. Rel. p. 70 Rib.); Plin. 10, 55, 76, § 154 orbus virili sexu, Afran. ap. Fest. l. l. (Com. Rel. p. 166 Rib.): liberi sexūs virilis, Suet. Aug. 101; Front. Strat. 1, 11, 6: puberes virilis sexūs, Liv. 26, 34: tres (liberi) sexūs feminini, Suet. Calig. 7; cf. Plin. 27, 2, 2, § 4; cf.: juvenes utriusque sexūs, Suet. Aug. 31: liberi, id. ib. 100; id. Vit. 6; id. Tib. 43: sine ullo sexūs discrimine, id. Calig. 8; Tac. A. 16, 10 fin. et saep.—Plur.: (sunezeugme/non) jungit et diversos sexus, ut cum marem feminamque filios dicimus, Quint. 9, 3, 63: lavacra pro sexibus separavit, Spart. Hadr. 18 fin.—
(b) Form secus (in the poets and historians, in the latter usually virile or muliebre secus, as an acc. resp. or limiting accusative, equivalent to the genitive or ablative of quality; v. Zumpt, Lat. Gram. § 428, for the preceding virilis sexūs, the male sex): filiolam ego unam habui, Virile secus numquam ullum habui, Plaut. Rud. 1, 2, 19: virile secus, Asell. ap. Gell. 2, 13, 5: quod ejus virile secus futurum est, Varr. ib. 3, 10, 7: secus muliebre, Aus. Idyll. 11, 8: puerile, id. Epigr. 70, 6: virile ac muliebre secus populi multitudo, Sisenn. ap. Non. 222, 27: concurrentium undique virile et muliebre secus, Sall. H. Fragm. ib. 25; and in Macr. S. 2, 9 (p. 228 Gerl.): ut Philippi statuae ... item majorum ejus virile ac muliebre secus omnium tollerentur, Liv 31, 44, 4: multitudinem obsessorum omnis aetatis, virile ac muliebre secus, Tac. H. 5, 13: praedas hominum virile et muliebre secus agebant, Amm. 29, 6, 8 et saep.: liberorum capitum virile secus ad decem milia capta, Liv. 26, 47, 1: athletarum spectaculo muliebre secus omnes adeo summovit, ut, etc., Suet. Aug. 44 fin.: destinatum Lacedaemoniis omnes virile secus interficere, Front. Strat. 1, 11, 6.—Rarely as nom.: affluxere avidi talium ... virile ac muliebre secus, omnis aetas, Tac. A. 4, 62: tres ordine partae, Vesta, Ceres et Juno, secus muliebre, sorores, Aus. Idyll. 11, 7; or as object of a verb: cur ex his unum secus virile designet, Arn. 1, 59; 5, 25: promiscue virile et muliebre secus trucidabant, Amm. 16, 11, 9; 27, 10, 2.—
II Transf.
A A sex, of plants and minerals, Plin. 13, 4, 7, § 31; 12, 14, 32, § 61; 36, 16, 25, § 128; 36, 21, 39, § 149.—
B The sexual organs, Plin. 22, 8, 9, § 20; Lact. 1, 21, 16.

3. Sexus — Walde–Hofmann

Sexus, -üs m. (n.?, Schmalz 368) „das männliche und weibliche Geschlecht; Geschlechtsglied* (et Plaut., rom. nur gelehrt; sexuälis „zum Geschlecht gehörig“ Cael, Aur.): wohl zu secäre, „Geschlecht“ = „Abteilung“ (Vanitek 292, Muller Ait. Wb. 415 mit Bed.-Parallelen, Güntert WuS. 11,127), u. zw. entweder aus dem Dual eines o-St.*sexo- (abltd. mit sarum; Danielsson Ait. Stud. IIl 190 ff) erwachsen (‚die beiden … — [Walde–Hofmann, s.v. Sexus, p. 1435]

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. sexus (scan pp. 574-575; entry #1626). Root candidates: *so-, *swo-, *soi-.
  • Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine Treated in Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine s.v. sexus (scan p. 645; entry #10677).
  • Walde-Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch Treated in Walde-Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch s.v. Sexus (scan p. 1435; entry #2591). Root candidates: *sexo-.

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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.