Latin

Alternative forms

• (Ecclesiastical Latin) īdōlolatra

Noun

īdōlolatrēs m ‎(genitive īdōlolatrae); first declension

1. An idol worshipper, idolater.
   • c. 196-211, Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, De idolatria, 1

     idololatres idem homicida est

     "The idolater is likewise a murderer."

   • c. 400-417, Augustine of Hippo, De Trinitate, liber I

     unde idololatrae dicuntur qui simulacris eam servitutem exhibent quae debetur Deo

     "They are called idolaters, who give that service to images or idols, which is due to God."

Usage notes

• In ordinary Classical Latin pronunciation, when tr co-occur intervocalically at a syllabic boundary (denoted in pronunciatory transcriptions by <.>), both consonants are considered to belong to the latter syllable; if the former syllable contains only a short vowel (and not a long vowel or a diphthong), then it is a light syllable. Where the two syllables under consideration are a word's penult and antepenult, this has a bearing on stress, because a word whose penult is a heavy syllable is stressed on that syllable, whereas one whose penult is a light syllable is stressed on the antepenult instead. In poetic usage, where syllabic weight and stress are important for metrical reasons, writers sometimes regard the t in such a sequence as belonging to the former syllable; in this case, doing so alters the word's stress. For more words whose stress can be varied poetically, see their category.

Inflection

First declension, masculine Greek type with nominative singular in -ēs.

Related terms

References

• idololatres in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• Félix Gaffiot (1934), “idololatres”, in Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Paris: Hachette.