pulvis

Traditionally derived from Proto-Indo-European *pel- (“flour, dust”), with accompanying comparanda given in the box below.

However, de Vaan is skeptical and prefers a derivation from Proto-Indo-European *pelh₁- (“chaff”), comparing palea (“idem”); see there for more.^[1]

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈpʊɫ.wɪs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈpul.vis]

pulvis m (genitive pulveris); third declension (sometimes feminine)^[2]

1. dust, powder, ashes
   • 8 CE, Ovid, Fasti 5.655–656:

     ‘mittite mē in Tiberim, Tiberīnīs vectus ut undīs
     lītus ad Īnachium pulvis inānis eam.’

     “Release [my body] into the Tiber [River], so that, carried by the waves of the Tiber, I may go as lifeless dust to the Inachian shore.”

   • 405 CE, Jerome, Vulgate Genesis.3.19:

     pulvis es et in pulverem revertēris.

     Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return (King James ver.)

2. (figuratively) an arena, place of contest
3. toil, effort, labor

   Synonyms: cōnātus, studium, opus, mōlīmen, opera, labor, cūra, intēnsiō, mōlēs

Third-declension noun.

• pulverulentus
• pulvīnus
• pulvisia
• *pulvus

See also pulvera.

• “pulvis”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “pulvis”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "pulvis", 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)
• pulvis in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• AIS: Sprach- und Sachatlas Italiens und der Südschweiz [Linguistic and Ethnographic Atlas of Italy and Southern Switzerland] – map 851: “la polvere” – on navigais-web.pd.istc.cnr.it
• Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002) “pŭlvis”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, volume 9: Placabilis–Pyxis, page 570