LOGOI

The corpus record — Latin

uterus

uterus

belly, womb

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

What it meant

1. uterus — de Vaan

uterus 'belly, womb' [m, ο] (Ρ1.+; n. uterum P1.+) Pit. *udero-, PIE *(H)ud-er-o- 'outer, sticking out'. IE cognates: Skt. udara- [n.] 'belly, womb', YAv. udaro£rqsa- 'crawling on the belly (of snakes)', Khot. ura-, ura- 'stomach', Gr. ΰδερος 'dropsy', Hsch. δδερος 'stomach' [with ho- for *A«-], ύστερα [f.] 'womb'; OPr weders 'stomach, belly', Lith. vaderas, vidaras [m.] 'sausage; intestines, stomach, lower … — [de Vaan, s.v. uterus, p. 661]

2. ŭtĕrus — Lewis & Short

ŭtĕrus, i, m. (collat. form ŭter, Caecil. ap.

Non. 188, 15;
I neutr. collat. form ŭtĕ-rum, i, Plaut. Aul. 4, 7, 10, acc. to Non. 229, 33; Turp. and Afran. ib.) [Sanscr. uttara, later; Gr. u(/steros; cf. Gr. u(ste/ra, womb; Sanscr. udaram, belly; Engl. udder], the womb, matrix (syn. volva).
I Lit.: utero exorti dolores, Plaut. Am. 5, 1, 40: perii, mea nutrix, uterum dolet! id. Aul. 4, 7, 10; id. Truc. 1, 2, 96: quae te beluam ex utero, non hominem fudit, Cic. Fragm. ap. Serv. Verg. A. 8, 139; Plaut. Truc. 1, 2, 97; Hirt. ap. Quint. 8, 3, 54; Prop. 4, 1, 100; Hor. C. 3, 22, 2; Ov. M. 9, 280; 9, 315; 10, 495; id. F. 2, 452; Tac. A. 1, 59; Plin. 9, 6, 5, § 13.—
II Transf.
A Of the cavities of the earth, from which the first creatures are represented to have come forth, Lucr. 5, 806; cf. Lact. 2, 11 init.—
B The fruit of the womb, a fetus, child, young: feminae uterum gerentes, i. e. pregnant, Cels. 2, 10; Tac. A. 1, 59.—Of animals, Varr. R. R. 2, 2, 14; Plin. 8, 40, 62, § 151.—
C In gen., the belly, paunch: me puero uterus erat solarium: ubi iste monebat esse, etc., Plaut. Fragm. ap. Gell. 3, 3, 5; Verg. A. 7, 499; Cels. 4, 1; Juv. 10, 309; Luc. 6, 115; 9, 773.— Of swans, Plin. 10, 47, 66, § 131.—
2 Of inanimate things; of the Trojan horse, Verg. A. 2, 52: dolii, Col. 12, 4, 5: lato utero (navium), Tac. A. 2, 6.

3. uterus — Walde–Hofmann

uterus, -; m., «ter, -i m. (seit Caecil), uterum, -i n. (seit Plaut.) „Unterleib, Bauch, bes, Mutterleib, Gebärmutter“ (seit Plt.). Dem.: uterculus, utriculus, - m. „kleiner Bauch“ (Plin.); Abltg.: uterinus, -a, -um „auf den Mutterleib bezüglich“ (Spátl): wohl zu ai. udáram „Bauch* usw., s. unter vensica (Curtius 228, Vanicek 41); vl. mit Ersetzung von d durch ? gleichzeitig mit dem lautgesetzlichen Übergang von … — [Walde–Hofmann, s.v. uterus, p. 1754]

In the wild

6 of 326 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. uterus (scan pp. 661-662; entry #1901). Root candidates: *udero-.
  • Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine Treated in Ernout-Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine s.v. uterus (scan p. 781; entry #13032).
  • Walde-Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch Treated in Walde-Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch s.v. uterus (scan pp. 1754-1757; entry #3365). Root candidates: *utro-, *udero-, *pe-.

Downloads

Word record (JSON)·Concordance (CSV)·Frequencies (CSV)·Cite (BibTeX)

CC BY 4.0 with receipt attribution — every file carries its license line. What is exportable

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.