# laetus
## Latin
### Pronunciation

* (Classical Latin) IPA: /ˈlae̯.tus/, [ˈɫ̪äe̯t̪ʊs̠]
* (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA: /ˈle.tus/, [ˈlɛːt̪us]

### Etymology 1

Unknown; possibly related to alacer (“happy, glad, cheerful”). Often compared to lardum (“fat, bacon lard”) and largus (“abundant, bountiful”), presupposing an earlier form *lai-to and earlier *lai-es, but de Vaan finds this reconstruction problematic.

#### Alternative forms

* lētus (Medieval Latin)

#### Adjective

laetus (feminine laeta, neuter laetum, comparative laetior, superlative laetissimus, adverb laetē); first/second-declension adjective
* happy, cheerful, glad
    Synonyms: felix, libēns, alacer, hilaris, hilarus, vīvus
    Antonyms: trīstis, infelix, maestus, miser, aeger
    Laetus sum. ― I (a man) am happy.
    Laeta sum. ― I (a woman) am happy.
* fertile, luxuriant, lush, rich
** 234 BCE – 149 BCE, Cato the Elder, De Agri Cultura 6:Ubi ager crassus et laetus est sine arboribus, eum agrum frumentarium esse oportet.Grain should be sown in heavy, rich, treeless soil.

##### Declension

First/second-declension adjective.

##### Derived terms

* laetificō
* laetificus
* laetitia
* laetō

##### Descendants

* Italo-Romance:
** Italian: lieto
* Gallo-Romance:
** Old French: lié, ⇒ liéement
*** Norman: liement
* Ibero-Romance:
** Old Galician-Portuguese: ledo
*** Galician: ledo
*** Portuguese: ledo
** Spanish: ledo

### Etymology 2

From Gothic *𐌻𐌴𐍄𐍃 (*lēts) (attested in Gothic 𐍆𐍂𐌰𐌻𐌴𐍄𐍃 (fralēts, “freeman”)), from Proto-Germanic *lētaz, from Proto-Germanic *lētaną (“to let, rent, free, release”). Attested in the Lex Salica. Cognate with Old Frisian lēt (“serf”), Old English lǣt (“serf”), English let, liege.

#### Alternative forms

* litus

#### Noun

laetus m (genitive laetī); second declension (Late Latin)
* a foreign bondman who received a piece of land to cultivate, for which he paid tribute to his master; a serf.

##### Declension

Second-declension noun.

##### Derived terms

* laeticus
** Old French: lige, liege (see there for further descendants)

##### Descendants

* → Old Saxon: lido, liddo (< litus)
* → Old High German: litus
** Middle High German: *lite
*** German: Lite

### References

* Ernout, Alfred, Meillet, Antoine (1985) “laetus”, in Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine: histoire des mots (in French), 4th edition, with additions and corrections of Jacques André, Paris: Klincksieck, published 2001, pages 337b–338a
* “laetus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
* “laetus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
* "laetus", 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)
* laetus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
* Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co. the laughing cornfields: laetae segetes
* “laetus”, in William Smith, editor (1848), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London: John Murray
* ↑ Buck, C. D. (2008). A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages. United States: University of Chicago Press.
* ↑ Pokorny, Julius (1959) “652”, in Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch [Indo-European Etymological Dictionary] (in German), volume 2, Bern, München: Francke Verlag, page 652
* ↑ Roberts, Edward A. (2014) A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Spanish Language with Families of Words based on Indo-European Roots, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN, p. 820
* ↑ De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “laetus”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 323