caterva

Learned borrowing from Latin caterva.

• IPA^(key): (Central)
• IPA^(key): (Balearic)
• IPA^(key): (Valencia)

caterva f (plural caterves)

1. multitude

• catèrvola

• “caterva” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

From Latin caterva.

caterva f (plural caterve)

1. multitude

• Used in the phrase una caterva di to means loads of, heaps of

• varcate

From Proto-Italic *katezwā, of uncertain origin. Perhaps related to cassis (“net”) and catēna (“chain”), from Proto-Indo-European *kat- (“to link or weave together; chain, net”). Also compare Albanian thes (“sack, bag”).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /kaˈter.u̯a/,
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /kaˈter.va/,

caterva f (genitive catervae); first declension

1. a crowd, a band, a troop, a retinue

   Synonyms: turba, manus, agmen

   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 1.496–497:

     rēgīna ad templum fōrmā pulcherrima Dīdō
     incessit magnā iuvenum stīpante catervā

     The queen at the temple – the exceedingly beautiful Dido – striding with a large retinue of youths escorting .

2. a group, flock, pack (of animals)
   • c. 125 CE – 180 CE, Apuleius, Metamorphoses 4.20:

     Miserum funestumque spectāmen aspexī: Thrasyleōnem nostrum catervīs canum saevientium cīnctum atque obsessum multīsque numerō morsibus laniātum.

     I witnessed a pitiable and dismal spectacle: our Thrasyleon was surrounded and besieged by packs of fierce dogs and wounded by a great number of bites.

First-declension noun.

• → Catalan: caterva
• → Italian: caterva
• → Sicilian: caterba
• → Spanish: caterva

• “caterva”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “caterva”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• caterva in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• caterva in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • a theatrical company: familia, grex, caterva histrionum
    
  • the Chorus in Tragedy: caterva, chorus
    
• De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “caterva”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 98

Borrowed from Latin caterva.

caterva f (plural catervas)

1. crowd, multitude
   • 1877, Benito Pérez Galdós, Gloria:

     -Antes se había entibiado la religiosidad; pero ahora se ha perdido por completo en la mayor parte de las personas, y las que aún saben dirigir sus almas al cielo, se ven perseguidas, amenazadas por la caterva brutal de filósofos y revolucionarios.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

• “caterva”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10