Etymological dictionaries agree that the widely borrowed Latin
"cadaver" derives from "cadere" 'to fall', but they gloss over the
details. Where's the -v- from? I can't tell if this is simply
obvious--if you actually know Latin, which I don't--or genuinely
unknown.

Many perfect stems have -v-, but cadere has a reduplicating perfect,
cecidi. Also, the perfect -v- doesn't appear in participle stems,
I think, which would be the most likely source to derive a noun
from.

So how _is_ cadaver formed from cadere?

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de

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On Sat, 17 May 2025 19:22:17 +0000, Christian Weisgerber wrote:

Etymological dictionaries agree that the widely borrowed Latin
"cadaver" derives from "cadere" 'to fall', but they gloss over the
details. Where's the -v- from? I can't tell if this is simply
obvious--if you actually know Latin, which I don't--or genuinely
unknown.

Many perfect stems have -v-, but cadere has a reduplicating perfect,
cecidi. Also, the perfect -v- doesn't appear in participle stems,
I think, which would be the most likely source to derive a noun
from.

So how _is_ cadaver formed from cadere?

_________________


One theory is that the -v- comes from analogy with other
Latin nouns ending in -ver or -vus (e.g., palaver, pulver from pulvis
"dust"). Latin sometimes inserts a -v- as a connective or euphonic
element.



Word (Root Suffix) Meaning

pulvis (pul- -vis) dust
suavis (su- -avis) sweet
clavis (cla- -vis) key
cadaver (cad- -aver) corpse
amavi (ama- -vi) I have loved
vocavi (voca- -vi) I have called



________________________


Reminds me of the question(s),

where does N in Javanese come from?

where does L in Congolese come from?

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On 18/05/2025 7:22 a.m., Christian Weisgerber wrote:

Etymological dictionaries agree that the widely borrowed Latin
"cadaver" derives from "cadere" 'to fall', but they gloss over the
details. Where's the -v- from? I can't tell if this is simply
obvious--if you actually know Latin, which I don't--or genuinely
unknown.

Many perfect stems have -v-, but cadere has a reduplicating perfect,
cecidi. Also, the perfect -v- doesn't appear in participle stems,
I think, which would be the most likely source to derive a noun
from.

So how _is_ cadaver formed from cadere?

So far as my resources can take me, nobody seems to know.
The relation with cadere is taken as given in my Lat-Eng dictionary, but
OED says "perhaps".

But thank you for an excuse to get out my copy of Walde, Lateinisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (1906) -- and pay tribute again to my old
friend Gloria, who (with me in mind) rescued it from a skip (dumpster)
outside the door of her neighbour, a recently deceased scholarly
Anglican clergyman.

Yes, well:

cadāver, -eris "Leichnam": wohl P.P.A. "der Gefallene" zu cadābundus,
cado (s.d.) (Vaniček 67, vgl. auch Schulze Qu.ep. 250 a 1). Bersus Gutt.
170 abweichende Verbindung mit der in cadamitas (s. calamitas)
vorliegenden Wz. von ai. kadanam "Vernichtung" u.s.w. ist
unwahrscheinlich, da ein P.P.A.dazu nur "vernichtet habend" bedeuten
würde und eine andere Auffassung des Suffixes aussteht.

I thought of one other Latin noun in -āver, namely papāver 'poppy', but
it doesn't help much:

papāver, -eris 'Mohn': wohl ptc.pf.act. *papā-ṷes "aufgeblasen, aufgedunsen" (Bildung wie cadāver) zu Wz. *pap- "aufblasen" in pampinus, papula (Vaniček 154).

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Ross Clark <benlizro@ihug.co.nz> wrote or quoted:

papāver, -eris 'Mohn': wohl ptc.pf.act. *papā-ṷes "aufgeblasen, >aufgedunsen" (Bildung wie cadāver) zu Wz. *pap- "aufblasen" in pampinus, >papula (Vaniček 154).

A guy quoted William Mitchell Ramsay, "Studies in the Roman Province
Galatia. VI.--Some Inscriptions of Colonia Caesarea Antiochea",
Journal of Roman Studies 14 (1924): 172-205 at 183 n.1 on a web forum:

|A poppy is carved on an altar of Hermes: the native name of
|opium was papa; papaver (cp. cadaver) is of Anatolian origin.
|Pappa meant father.

. Ramsay did not mention any specific sources for an Anatolian
origin there. But since that ending does not show up much in Latin,
it might be a loanword. Sometimes folks link it to the Indo-European
root "wer", but "wer" is really just a root, not a suffix.

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ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) wrote or quoted:

it might be a loanword. Sometimes folks link it to the Indo-European
root "wer", but "wer" is really just a root, not a suffix.

Yeah, sometimes a root can wind up as a suffix. Both cadavers and
poppies can let out some fluid, and there is an Indo-European root
"wē-r-" that means "liquid". (Just my own thought.) However, in Latin,
fluid from a poppy was actually called "latex".

purge fluid, putrefactive fluids, decomposition fluids

latex, poppy latex

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ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) wrote or quoted:

ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) wrote or quoted:

it might be a loanword. Sometimes folks link it to the Indo-European
root "wer", but "wer" is really just a root, not a suffix.

Yeah, sometimes a root can wind up as a suffix. Both cadavers and
poppies can let out some fluid, and there is an Indo-European root
"wē-r-" that means "liquid".

cadaver, papaver, river, ... But no! The English word "river"
comes from Middle English "rivere", from Anglo-Norman, from
Vulgar Latin *"rīpāria", from Latin, feminine of "rīpārius",
"of a bank", from "rīpa", "bank".

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On 2025-05-18, Stefan Ram <ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:

cadaver, papaver, river, ... But no! The English word "river"
comes from Middle English "rivere", from Anglo-Norman, from
Vulgar Latin *"rīpāria", from Latin, feminine of "rīpārius",
"of a bank", from "rīpa", "bank".

A few kilometers south from here, the town of Altrip derives its
name from Alta Ripa, 'high river bank', the designation of a Roman
fort founded in 369.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de

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On 2025-05-17, Ross Clark <benlizro@ihug.co.nz> wrote:

cadāver, -eris "Leichnam": wohl P.P.A. "der Gefallene" zu cadābundus,
cado (s.d.) (Vaniček 67, vgl. auch Schulze Qu.ep. 250 a 1).

papāver, -eris 'Mohn': wohl ptc.pf.act. *papā-ṷes "aufgeblasen, aufgedunsen" (Bildung wie cadāver) zu Wz. *pap- "aufblasen" in pampinus, papula (Vaniček 154).

The "participle perfect active" is confusing, because Latin verbs
don't have such a category. I guess it refers to an older formation
that would only exist in relic forms in Latin. I see that a
participle in *-wos- ~ *-us- is reconstructed for the PIE stative.

I don't understand why such a formation wouldn't require a perfect
stem.

Here's what de Vaan's _Etymological Dictionary of Latin_ (2008)
says. I missed that initially because cadaver doesn't have its
own entry and is treated under cadō:

The form of cadaver is difficult to explain. WH assume a ppa.
*kadā-wes- ‘having fallen’, which is fine semantically; but where
would ā come from, and why would the neuter form have been
lexicalized?

No entry for papāver.


PS:
The entry for cadō also mentions IE cognates Gr. κεκαδών ‘robbing’, ύπὸ ... κεκάδοντο ‘they receded’ [I may have butchered the diacritics]
and further says:
The appurtenance of Gr. pf. κεκαδ- is disputed: ‘to recede’ may
have developed from ‘to fall back’, but this would probably imply
that the active forms are secondary.

Whatever. But "appurtenance"? That's not the right word, is it?
I think we're looking for a derivative of "appertain", but English
dictionaries seem rather mum there. Simply "pertinence"?

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de

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