levis

levis

1. past of levi

levis

1. past of levar

From Proto-Italic *leɣʷis (with possible contamination from *breɣʷis), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁lengʰwih₂-, from *h₁lengʰu-, from *h₁lengʷʰ- (“light”). Cognates include Sanskrit लघु (laghú), Ancient Greek ἐλαφρός (elaphrós) and ἐλαχύς (elakhús) and Old English lēoht (English light).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈle.wis/, [ˈɫɛ.wɪs]

• Audio (Classical)

  (file)

levis (neuter leve); third declension

1. light (not heavy)
2. quick, swift
3. fickle
4. dispensable
5. trivial, trifling
   • c. 50 CE, Seneca the Younger, Phaedra, 607

     Curae leues locuntur, ingentes stupent.

     Trivial concerns talk, great ones are speechless.

Third declension.

• comparative: levior, superlative: levissimus

• (light): gravis
• (quick, swift): lentus

• levitās
• levō

Uncertain. Possibly from Proto-Italic *lēju-, *lēiw-i-, from Proto-Indo-European *leh₁y-u- (“smooth”) and cognate to Ancient Greek λεῖος (leîos, “smooth, plain, level, hairless, soft”), Ancient Greek λίς (lís, “smooth”).[1] Or from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ley- (“slime, slimy, sticky”) and cognate to Latin līmus (“mud, slime, muck”), English slime, Ancient Greek λίμνη (límnē, “marsh”).

Likely cognate to Latin oblīvīscor (“I forget”).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈleː.wis/, [ˈɫeː.wɪs]

• Audio (Classical)

  (file)

lēvis (neuter lēve); third declension

1. smooth, smoothed
2. (substantive) smoothness

Third declension.

• laevis (incorrect)

• oblīvīscor

• levis in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• levis in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• levis in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• levis in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• Carl Meissner; Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • a man of character, with a strong personality: vir constans, gravis (opp. homo inconstans, levis)
    
  • light infantry: milites levis armaturae
    
  • (ambiguous) men of sound opinions: homines graves (opp. leves)