Laelius

Possibly from Latin laeva (“left [side or direction]”), which had a positive connotation in the archaic Latin and Etruscan rite.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈɫae̯.li.ʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈlɛː.li.us]

Laelius m (genitive Laeliī or Laelī); second declension

1. a Roman nomen gentilicium

Second-declension noun.

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

• Ancient Greek: Λαίλιος (Laílios)

• “Laelius”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• Laelius in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “Laelius” on page 1096/2 of the Oxford Latin Dictionary (2nd ed., 2012)
• Ernout, Alfred, Meillet, Antoine (1985) “laeuus”, 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, page 338