altarium

Latin

Etymology

Found in post-Classical and later Latin, as a singular of the Classical altāria, the plural of altāre (which was mostly used as the plural). Ultimately a derivative of altus (“fed”), given the notion that altars were where sacrificial fires were "fed" by offerings. See also other forms altar and altāre.

Noun

altārium n (genitive altāriī or altārī); second declension

1. (high) altar

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter).

	singular	plural
nominative	altārium	altāria
genitive	altāriī altārī1	altāriōrum
dative	altāriō	altāriīs
accusative	altārium	altāria
ablative	altāriō	altāriīs
vocative	altārium	altāria

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

Descendants

• → Albanian: ilter
• Dalmatian: altur
• Galician: outeiro
• Istro-Romanian: altår
• Megleno-Romanian: altar
• Portuguese: outeiro
• Romanian: altar
• Sicilian: auteri, Auteri
• Spanish: otero
• → Proto-West Germanic: *altārī (see there for further descendants)

Noun

altārium

1. genitive plural of altar

Further reading

• “altarium”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• "altarium", 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)
• altarium in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.