gnatus

== Latin == === Etymology === From Proto-Italic *gnātos (“born; son”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵn̥h₁tós (“begotten; produced”), from *ǵenh₁- (“to produce, give birth, beget”). When used as a verb form, it functions as the perfect active participle of the deponent verb nāscor (“to be born”). The form *gnātos must have previously also served as the perfect passive participle of the transitive verb gignō (“to bear; to beget; to engender”), whose attested perfect passive participle genitus is a relatively recent replacement built by analogy to the stem of the perfect genuī. Continued association with the latter verb, and with other related words where initial /g/ was regularly retained due to a following vowel, such as genus (“birth, origin, lineage, descent”), could be part of the reason a spelling with gn- was used for this word for some time after regular sound change had generally replaced initial /ɡn-/ in Latin with /n-/. Another influence on the spelling could have been the medial -gn- found in related prefixed words such prōgnātus, cognātus. Alternatively, Köhm 1905 suggests that the relatively frequent occurrence of the noun after a possessive pronoun could have caused /ɡn/ to be retained just as it was in word-internal position. === Pronunciation === (Classical Latin) IPA(key): [ˈnaː.tʊs] (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): [ˈɲaː.tus] === Participle === gnātus (feminine gnāta, neuter gnātum); first/second-declension participle (Old Latin) alternative form of nātus (“born”) born (used with the noun genere, ablative of genus (“lineage, descent, stock”)) descended from, born to Synonym: prōgnātus (used with a phrase expressing age) aged (having the age of); -old ==== Declension ==== First/second-declension adjective. ==== Derived terms ==== === Noun === gnātus m (genitive gnātī, feminine gnāta); second declension (Old Latin or poetic) alternative form of nātus (“son”) Synonym: fīlius Horatius, Sermones 2.5.30-31 (c. 35 BC, tr. H. Fairclough): ==== Declension ==== Second-declension noun. === Usage notes === The noun ("son") is fairly consistently spelled with gn- in the comedies of Plautus and Terence, whereas the verbal participle ("born") is already often spelled with n- in these authors. In later authors such as Virgil, the use of the spelling gn- is a definite archaism. === References === === Further reading === “gnatus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press “gnatus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers "gnatus", in Charles du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887) “gnatus”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.