Chapter 255Allen and Greenough's Latin GrammarDickinson CollegeChristopher Francese
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The suffix
-ō
(genitive
-ōnis
, stem
ōn-
), usually added to verb-stems (see §
236
.
c
), is sometimes used with noun-stems to form nouns denoting
possessed of.
These were originally adjectives expressing
quality
or
character
, and hence often appear as
proper names:
—
epulae
,
a feast;epul-ō
,
a feaster.nāsus
,
a nose;nās-ō
,
with a large nose
(also as a proper name).
volus
(in
bene-volus
),
wishing;vol-ōnēs
(plural),
volunteers.frōns
,
forehead;front-ō
,
big-head
(also as a proper name).
cūria
,
a curia;cūri-ō
,
head of a curia
(also as a proper name).
restis
,
a rope;resti-ō
,
a rope-maker.
Rarely suffixes are added to
compound
stems imagined, but not used in their compound form:—
ad-verb-ium
,
adverb;ad
,
to
, and
verbum
,
verb
, but without the intervening †
adverbus
.
lāti-fund-ium
,
large estate;lātus
,
wide
,
fundus
,
estate
, but without the
inter
vening †
lātifundus
.
su-ove-taur-īlia
,
a sacrifice of a swine, a sheep, and a bull;sūs
,
swine
,
ovis
,
sheep
,
taurus
,
bull
, where the primitive would be impossible in Latin, though such formations are common in Sanskrit.