contagium

English

Etymology

From Latin contagium (“contagion”).

Noun

contagium (plural contagia)

1. (archaic) contagion; contagious matter [ca. 1870—1910]
   • 1865, John Simon, “Minutes of Evidence Taken Before the Cattle Plague Commissioners”, in Report on the Origin, Propagation, Nature, and Treatment of the Cattle Plague, published 1866, page 42:

     And its escape [from certain diseases] is an approximative proof that, at least for those ten years, no contagium of measles, “nor any contagium of scarlet fever, nor any contagium of small-pox, had arisen spontaneously" within its limits.

   • 1901 December 20, H. Watkins-Pitchford, “Rinderpest”, in The Agricultural Journal and Mining Record‎^[1], volume 4, number 21, pages 641–642:

     That this in fact was the case was ascertained by Dr. Edington, who, by adding a large percentage (33 per cent.) of glycerine to the gall taken from a rinderpest beast, was able to show that by such contact the infective power of bile was as effectually destroyed as was the contagium of blood.

Latin

Etymology

From contingo (“to contact; contaminate”) +‎ -ium, from con- (“with”) +‎ tango (“to touch”). More precisely, built on the root of the verb (see Proto-Indo-European *teh₂g-) and so lacks the nasal infix found in the verb's present stem; compare contāgiō and contāminō.

Noun

contāgium n (genitive contāgiī or contāgī); second declension

1. contact, touching

   Synonyms: contāctus, contāgiō

2. contagion

   Synonyms: contāctus, contāminātiō

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter).

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	contāgium	contāgia
Genitive	contāgiī contāgī1	contāgiōrum
Dative	contāgiō	contāgiīs
Accusative	contāgium	contāgia
Ablative	contāgiō	contāgiīs
Vocative	contāgium	contāgia

¹Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).

Related terms

• contāgiō
• contingō

Descendants

• → Catalan: contagi
• → English: contagium
• → Galician: contaxio
• → Ido: kontagio
• → Italian: contagio
• → Portuguese: contágio
• → Romanian: contagiu
• → Spanish: contagio

References

• “contagium”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “contagium”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• contagium 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)
• contagium in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.