Possibly a contraction of the Old Latin personal name *Iovilios (“descended from or pertaining to Jove”); see Iovis, or from Ancient Greek ἴουλος (íoulos, “downy first beard hairs (of a young man)”). The month quīntīlis was renamed after Julius Caesar in 44 BC.
Iūlius (feminine Iūlia, neuter Iūlium); first/second-declension adjective
In Classical Latin, month names were regularly used as adjectives, generally modifying a case-form of mēnsis m sg (“month”) or of one of the nouns used in the Roman calendar to refer to specific days of the month from which other days were counted: Calendae f pl (“calends”), Nōnae f pl (“nones”), Īdūs f pl (“ides”). However, the masculine noun mēnsis could be omitted by ellipsis, so the masculine singular forms of month names eventually came to be used as proper nouns.[1]
The accusative plural adjective forms Aprīlīs, Septembrīs, Octōbrīs, Novembrīs, Decembrīs[2] are ambiguous in writing, being spelled identically to the genitive singular forms of the nouns; nevertheless, the use of ablative singular forms in -ī and comparison with the usage of other month names as adjectives supports the interpretation of -is as an accusative plural adjective ending in Classical Latin phrases such as "kalendas Septembris".[3]
First/second-declension adjective.
singular | plural | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
masculine | feminine | neuter | masculine | feminine | neuter | ||
nominative | Iūlius | Iūlia | Iūlium | Iūliī | Iūliae | Iūlia | |
genitive | Iūliī | Iūliae | Iūliī | Iūliōrum | Iūliārum | Iūliōrum | |
dative | Iūliō | Iūliae | Iūliō | Iūliīs | |||
accusative | Iūlium | Iūliam | Iūlium | Iūliōs | Iūliās | Iūlia | |
ablative | Iūliō | Iūliā | Iūliō | Iūliīs | |||
vocative | Iūlie | Iūlia | Iūlium | Iūliī | Iūliae | Iūlia |
Iūlius m sg (genitive Iūliī or Iūlī); second declension
Second-declension noun, singular only.
singular | |
---|---|
nominative | Iūlius |
genitive | Iūliī Iūlī1 |
dative | Iūliō |
accusative | Iūlium |
ablative | Iūliō |
vocative | Iūlī |
1Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).
From the personal name:
From the month name:
These borrowings are ultimately but perhaps not directly from Latin. They are organized into geographical and language family groups, not by etymology.