[34]
But are we
also to admit the derivation of certain words from
their opposites, and accept lucus a non lucendo, since
a grove is dark with shade, ludus in the sense of
school as being so called because it is quite the
reverse of “play” and Dis, Ditis from diues, because
Pluto is far from being rich? Are we to assent to
the view that homo is derived from humus, because
man sprang from the earth, as though all other
living things had not the same origin or as if
primitive man gave the earth a name before giving
one to himself? Or again can verbum be derived
from aer verheratus, “beaten air”?
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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