lotium

Latin

Etymology

From lōtus, a variant form of the perfect passive participle of lavō (“to wash”) +‎ -ium (“abstract noun suffix”), so called because urine was widely used as a washing and bleaching agent.

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈloː.ti.um/, [ˈɫ̪oːt̪iʊ̃ˑ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈlot.t͡si.um/, [ˈlɔt̪ː͡s̪ium]

Noun

lōtium n (genitive lōtiī or lōtī); second declension

1. urine, piss

   Synonym: ūrīna

   • c. 125 CE – 180 CE, Apuleius, Metamorphoses 1.18:

     Ad haec ille surrīdēns ‘At tū’ inquit ‘nōn sanguine sed lōtiō perfūsus es!’

     Hearing this, he grinned and said, "But you didn't soak in blood, you soaked in piss!"

   • 234 BCE – 149 BCE, Cato the Elder, De agri cultura 122:

     Vīnum concinnāre, sī lōtium difficilius transībit. capreidam vel jūnipirum contunditō in pīlā, lībram inditō, in duōbus congiīs vīnī veteris in vāse ahēneō vel in plumbeō dēfervēfacitō: ubi refrīxerit, in lagōnam inditō. id māne jeijūnus sūmitō cyathum: prōderit.

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter).

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	lōtium	lōtia
Genitive	lōtiī lōtī1	lōtiōrum
Dative	lōtiō	lōtiīs
Accusative	lōtium	lōtia
Ablative	lōtiō	lōtiīs
Vocative	lōtium	lōtia

¹Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).

References

• “lotium”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• lotium 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)
• lotium in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• lotium in Georges, Karl Ernst, Georges, Heinrich (1913–1918) Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th edition, volume 2, Hahnsche Buchhandlung
• “lōtium” on page 1148/3 of the Oxford Latin Dictionary (2nd ed., 2012)

Anagrams

• mutilo