Latin

Adjective

argentōsus m ‎(feminine argentōsa, neuter argentōsum); first/second declension

1. full of silver, silvery, silver-bearing
   • c. 77 CE – 79 CE, Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 33.29

     Ita feruminatur aurum, quod argentosum vocant.

     Thus the gold, which they call silvery, is soldered.

   • 1561, Xenophon, tr. by Jean Ribit, De Vectigalibus:

     Quum autem sic olim effossa sit et egesta materia argenti, considerate nec aliquam partem eiecti acervi sponte nascentium glebarum et argentosarum, nec ipsum argentosum locum quicquam diminutum et contractum esse, sed magis ac magis protendi ac diletari videtur.

     Now in spite of the fact that the silver ore has been dug and carried out for so long a time, I would ask you to note that the mounds of rubbish so shoveled out are but a fractional portion of the series of hillocks containing veins full of silver, and as yet unquarried, nor is the silver-bearing region gradually becoming circumscribed, but rather it is evidently extending in wider area from year to year.

Inflection

First/second declension.

Related terms

• argentum

References

• argentosus in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• Félix Gaffiot (1934), “argentosus”, in Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Paris: Hachette.