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tellus. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
tellus, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
tellus in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
tellus you have here. The definition of the word
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Latin
Etymology
From Proto-Italic *telnos, perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *telnos ~ *telnes-, from *telh₂- (“flat ground”), but reshaped after rūs. Otherwise, could derive from Etruscan 𐌕𐌖𐌋𐌀𐌓 (tular, “earth”).
Pronunciation
Noun
tellūs f (genitive tellūris); third declension
- earth, ground, soil
- Synonyms: terra, solum, humus
- Earth, globe, world
8 CE,
Ovid,
Fasti 2.515:
- nōn habuit doctōs tellūs antīqua colōnōs
- The ancient world did not have skilled farmers.
(Other possible translations include “soil” or “country”.)
8 CE,
Ovid,
Metamorphoses 1.10–14:
- Nūllus adhūc mundō praebēbat lūmina Tītān,
nec nova crēscendō reparābat cornua Phoebē,
nec circumfūsō pendēbat in āere tellūs
ponderibus lībrāta suīs, nec bracchia longō
margine terrārum porrēxerat Amphītrītē; - No Titan as yet provided light to the world, nor did Phoebe repair new horns in waxing, nor did the Earth hang in the surrounding air, balanced by its own weights, nor had Amphitrite stretched her arms down the far borders of the lands;
- country, district, region, land
29 BCE – 19 BCE,
Virgil,
Aeneid 1.34:
- Vix ē cōnspectū Siculae tellūris in altum
- Almost beyond sight of the land of Sicily, upon the deep
Or: On the deep , Sicilian land scarcely out of sight
Declension
Third-declension noun.
Derived terms
References
- “tellus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “tellus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
- tellus 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)
- tellus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
- “tellus”, in The Perseus Project (1999) Perseus Encyclopedia
- “tellus”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
- “tellus”, in William Smith, editor (1848), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London: John Murray
- De Vaan, Michiel (2008) Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN