Attic Nights, Vol. II

a kind of surplus of the thing to which the word refers. Thus, he showed that laetabundus is said of one who is abundantly joyful, and errabundus of one who is in a state of long and abundant wandering; and he showed that all other words of this figure are said in such a way that this formation and termination declare a large and flowing force and abundance.

XVI

1 We have often turned our attention to a great number of terms for things that can neither be expressed by single words, as the Greeks do, nor demonstrated in Latin speech as clearly and appropriately—even if we use many words to describe them—as the Greeks express them with individual terms. 2 Recently, when a book by Plutarch was brought to us and we read the title of that book, which was περὶ πολυπραγμοσύνης on meddlesomeness, a certain person who was ignorant of both literature and Greek words asked whose book it was and what it was written about. We immediately stated the name of the author, but we hesitated when we were about to speak of the subject matter. 3 At that time, because I thought it would not be sufficiently apt to interpret it by saying the book was written "on negotiosity" original: "de negotiositate", I began to search for something else that would be, as they say, word for word. 4 There was absolutely nothing that I remembered having read, or that I could invent if I tried, that would not be remarkably harsh and absurd if I were to piece together a single word from "many" and "business," just as we say multiiuga many-yoked and multicolora many-colored and multiformia many-shaped.