helvus

Disputed. De Vaan posits a derivation from Proto-Italic *heliwos, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰelh₃-i-wó-s, itself from the addition of *-wos to *ǵʰolh₃-i-s, which is attested in Sanskrit हरि (hari). Nussbaum argues that the term must come from a pre-form *helVwos and would have emerged via the syncopation of the segment *-lVw- (compare Latin solvō, from *seluō). Furthermore, Nussbaum specifies that the pre-form must have been *heliwos at the time /l/ was velarized throughout Latin, as an alternative form would have—according to Nussbaum—evolved into *heɫw- following velarization and then into *holw-, as /eɫ/ evolved into /oɫ/ in initial syllables (compare *welō > volō). Sihler proposes a pre-form *hellwos, from Proto-Indo-European *ghelswo-. Sihler compares the term to Lithuanian gel̃svas, although De Vaan considers the Proto-Indo-European form posited by Sihler to be uncertain, as the only cognate—the Lithuanian term—could have been formed by a productive suffix within Lithuanian. In both proposals, the term ultimately originates from the root *ǵʰelh₃-. It has also been suggested the term is a borrowing from the Sabellic languages.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈhɛɫ.wʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈɛl.vus]

helvus (feminine helva, neuter helvum); first/second-declension adjective

1. honey-yellow
   • 4 CE – c. 70 CE, Columella, De Re Rustica 3.2:

     Sunt et Helvolae, quās nōn nūllī variās appellant, neque purpureae neque nigrae, ab helvō, nisi fallor, colōre vocitātae.

     There are also the Helvolans, which some call variae. They are neither purple nor black; from their honey-yellow colour they get their name, if I'm not wrong.

First/second-declension adjective.

• (yellow): flavus

• helvolus
• helvius
• helvella
• Helvius

• → Italian: elvo

• “helvus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• helvus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• De Vaan, Michiel (2008) Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 282
• Sihler, Andrew L. (1995) New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 41
• Alan J. Nussbaum (1 January 1999) *Jocidus: an account of the Latin adjectives in -idus‎^[1], page 386