semivir

Latin

Etymology

From semi- (“half”) +‎ vir (“man”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈseː.mi.u̯ir/, [ˈs̠eːmiu̯ɪr]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈse.mi.vir/, [ˈsɛːmivir]

Noun

sēmivir m (genitive sēmivirī); second declension

1. a half-man, half man and half beast, semihomo, e.g., the centaur Chiron
   • 8 CE, Ovid, Fasti 5.379–380:

     Nocte minus quārtā prōmet sua sīdera Chīrōn
     sēmivir et flāvī corpore mixtus equī.

     [One] less [than] the fourth night, Chiron will bring forth his stars:
     a half-man, and joined with the body of a tawny horse.
     (See: Centaur; Chiron; Centaurus.)

2. (transferred) a half-man in a derogatory sense of seeming effeminate or unmanly
   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 4.215–217:

     “Et nunc ille Paris cum sēmivirō comitātū,
     Maeoniā mentum mitrā crīnemque madentem
     subnexus, raptō potītur [...].

     “And now, that [other] Paris – with his troupe of half-men, and his pomaded hair in a Maeonian turban tied under his chin – holds tight what he has stolen [from me].”
     (As Paris took Helen, Aeneas has taken Dido; and so a jealous King Iarbas says that the outsiders’ appearance is unmanly, and perhaps implies that they could be eunuchs.)

3. castrated man, eunuch
4. hermaphrodite

Declension

Second-declension noun (nominative singular in -r).

	singular	plural
nominative	sēmivir	sēmivirī
genitive	sēmivirī	sēmivirōrum
dative	sēmivirō	sēmivirīs
accusative	sēmivirum	sēmivirōs
ablative	sēmivirō	sēmivirīs
vocative	sēmivir	sēmivirī

References

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