LOGOI

The corpus record — Latin

vix

vix

hardly

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

What it meant

1. vix — de Vaan

vix 'hardly' [adv.] (PL+) Pit. *wks [nom.sg.] / *wiksu [loc.pl.]. PIE *uik- 'a turn, bend'. A derivation from *uiki- 'turn, occasion' seems semantically possible ('only occasionally' > 'hardly'), but a nom.sg. *uikis is morphologically not the most straightforward candidate, and we would not expect *-kis > -ks after a short vowel in an open syllable. We may therefore adopt WH's solution of deriving vix from the root … — [de Vaan, s.v. vix, p. 700]

2. vix — Lewis & Short

vix, adv.etym. dub.; perh. from root vic- of vinco,

I with difficulty, with much ado, hardly, scarcely, barely.
I In gen.: quid est, sine his cur vivere velimus? mihi vero cum his ipsis vix; his autem detractis ne vix quidem, Cic. Fam. 9, 8, 2: quae vix aut ne vix quidem adpareant, id. Fin. 4, 13, 32: ut vix aut omnino non posset ... infirmari sua lex, id. Att. 3, 23, 2; cf.: profluens amnis aut vix aut nullo modo, conclusa autem aqua facile corrumpitur, id. N. D. 2, 7, 20: vix incedo inanis, ne, etc., Plaut. Am. 1, 1, 174: vix sum compos animi, Ter. Ad. 3, 2, 12: vix me contineo, quin involem, etc., id. Eun. 5, 2, 20: Thr. Hic sunt tres minae. Gn. Vix, id. ib. 3, 2, 19: vix in ipsis tectis frigus vitatur, Cic. Fam. 16, 8, 2: ego teneo ab accusando vix me hercule: sed tamen teneo, id. Q. Fr. 3, 2, 2: Gabinius collegit ipse se vix, sed collegit tamen, id. Pis. 12, 27: iter angustum et difficile, vix quā singuli carri ducerentur, Caes. B. G. 1, 6: brevi spatio interjecto, vix ut his rebus ... administrandis tempus daretur, id. ib. 3, 4; cf.: adeo, ut vix ulla possit causa reperiri, Quint. Inst. prooem. § 12: ex hominum milibus LX. vix ad D. sese redactos esse dixerunt, to scarcely five hundred, Caes. B. G. 2, 28: carcer vix carcere dignus, Lucil. ap. Don. Ter. Eun. 3, 2, 19 et saep.: ego vix teneor, quin accurram, Cic. Fam. 16, 24, 2: vix est, ut id obtineat, Dig. 41, 1, 7, § 7; so ib. 16, 1, 19 init.—
B Strengthened,
1 By aegre: vix aegreque amatorculos invenimus, Plaut. Poen. 1, 2, 27: vix et aegre, App. M. 1, p. 111, 10: vix et aegerrime, id. ib. 1, p. 108, 40; v. aegre.—
2 By saltem: illud vix saltem praecipiendum videtur, Quint. 6, 4, 15.—
3 By repetition: corpus matri vix vixque remissum, Albin. 1, 167.—
II In partic., of time, hardly, scarcely.
A Absol.: assum atque advenio Acherunte vix via alta atque ardua, Poët. ap. Cic. Tusc. 1, 16, 37 (Trag. Rel. p. 208 Rib.): ah, vix tandem sensi stolidus! Ter. And. 3, 1, 12: vix tandem legi litteras, Cic. Fam. 3, 9, 1; Cat. 62, 2: contingat vix deinde mori, Val. Fl. 7, 537.—
B With a foll. cum, and poet. also et, to denote the immediate succession of two events.
1 With cum: vix agmen novissimum extra munitiones processerat, cum Galli, etc., Caes. B. G. 6, 8: vix erat hoc plane imperatum, cum illum ... videres, Cic. Verr. 2, 4, 40, § 86: vix ea fatus erat, geminae cum forte columbae ... caelo venere volantes, Verg. A. 6, 190; Ov. M. 1, 69.—
2 With et: vix primos inopina quies laxaverat artus, Et superincumbens ... liquidas projecit in undas Praecipitem, Verg. A. 5, 857; so, vix ... et, id. ib. 6, 498; Stat. Th. 5, 263; cf.: vix ... que, Verg. A. 2, 692.—
3 With ellipsis of cum or et: vix proram attigerat, rumpit Saturnia funem, Verg. A. 10, 659; 8, 337: vix bene desieram, rettulit illa mihi, Ov. F. 5, 278; Phaedr. 4, 24, 28 sq.; so, vix bene, Ov. M. 2, 47.—
C Strengthened by dum, and usually written in one word, vixdum, hardly then, scarcely yet: Dolabella valde vituperabatur, quod tibi tam cito succederet, cum vixdum triginta dies in Syriā fuisses, Cic. Fam. 12, 4, 2: haec ego omnia vixdum etiam coetu nostro dimisso comperi, id. Cat. 1, 4, 10: (Hannibalem) vixdum puberem, Liv. 21, 3, 2: vixdum serio adnuere, id. 39, 42, 12: progressis vixdum quattuor milia passuum, id. 44, 5, 1; 32, 28, 4; 10, 32, 7: puer vixdum libertatem, nedum dominationem modice laturus, id. 24, 4, 1: vixdum dimidium dixeram: intellexerat, Ter. Phorm. 4, 2, 4: vixdum epistulam tuam legeram, cum, etc., Cic. Att. 9, 2, A, 3.—So with et, Liv. 36, 12, 5; 43, 4, 10; Plin. Ep. 7, 33, 7.

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. vix (scan p. 700; entry #2010). Root candidates: *uik-, *uiki-.

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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.