dolus

Borrowed from Latin dolus (“deceit, trickery”); akin to Ancient Greek δόλος (dólos, “bait, ruse”). Compare dolose, dolosity.

• IPA^(key): /ˈdoʊləs/
• Rhymes: -oʊləs

dolus (countable and uncountable, plural doli)

1. (law) Evil intent: malice or fraud.
   • 1849, James G. Butler, A Summary of the Roman Civil Law:

     Every actual delict presupposes a dolus or culpa, with the concomitant consciousness and prepense

• dolose
• dolosity
• dolus specialis

• “dolus”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• Sudol, louds, ludos

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈdɔ.ɫʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈd̪ɔː.lus]

From Proto-Indo-European *dolh₁os. Cognates include Ancient Greek δόλος (dólos).^[1]

dolus m (genitive dolī); second declension

1. deception, deceit, fraud, guile, treachery, trickery

   Synonyms: dēceptiō, perfidia, fraus, maleficium, stratēgēma, ars

   • 166 BCE, Publius Terentius Afer, Andria 582–584:

     SĪMŌ: Ego dūdum nōn nihil veritūs sum, Dāve, abs tē, nē facerēs īdem / quod volgus servōrum solet dolīs: ut mē dēlūderēs / proptereā quod amat fīlius.

     SIMO: For a long time, I have feared not a little from you, Davus, lest you do the same thing that the common run of slaves usually does with [their] trickery: that you would deceive me just because my son is in love.
     (Clever slaves who fool unwary masters was a common trope in ancient comedy.)

   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 1.130:

     Nec latuēre dolī frātrem Iūnōnis et īrae.

     Nor was [her] brother [Neptune] unaware of the deceit and wrath of Juno.

2. evil intent; malice; wrongdoing (with a view to the consequences)
3. device, artifice, strategem, trap

The phrase dolum faciō means "to trick."

Second-declension noun.

• dolōsus
• subdolus

• dolōsē
• dolōsitās

Probably a separate and unrelated term from the above, instead deriving from doleō (“to hurt, grieve”) and dolor (“pain”).

dolus m (genitive dolī); second declension (Late Latin)

1. pain, grief

• cordolium

• “dolus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “dolus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "dolus", 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)
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • by craft: per dolum (B. G. 4. 13)
    
  • by the aid of fraud and lies: dolis et fallaciis (Sall. Cat. 11. 2)
    

do- +‎ lés (compare solus, from Old Irish solus).

• IPA^(key): /ˈdˠolusˠ/

dolus

1. lightless, obscure

• Irish: dolas

• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “dolus”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language