Latin

Adjective

sonīvius m ‎(feminine sonīvia, neuter sonīvium); first/second declension

1. (in augural language, attested modifying tripudium only) noisy (of the rattling of the corn upon the ground as it fell from the mouths of the sacred chickens)
   • (Can we find and add a quotation of Cato the Elder to this entry?)
   • (Can we find and add a quotation of Cicero to this entry?)
   • AD 77–79, C. Plinius Secundus (aut.), K.F.T. Mayhoff (ed.), Naturalis Historia (1906), bk XV, ch. xxviii:

     quae causa eas nuptiis fecit religiosas, tot modis fetu munito, quod est veri similius quam quia cadendo tripudium sonivium faciant.

     It is for this reason that this fruit has been looked upon as a symbol consecrated to marriage, its offspring being thus protected in such manifold ways: an explanation which bears a much greater air of probability than that which would derive it from the rattling which it makes when it bounds from the floor. ― translation from: J. Bostock and H.T. Riley, The Natural History (1855), bk XV, ch. xxiv (xxii)

   • AD 8th C., Paulus Diaconus (author), Karl Otfried Müller (editor), Excerpta ex libris Pompeii Festi De significatione verborum (1839), page 290, lines 31–32:

     Sonivio significat in carmine augurali, sonanti.

   • ibidem, page 297, lines 19–22:

     Sonivium tripudium, ut ait Appius Pulcher, quod sonet, cum pullo excidit plus, quadrupedive.

   • For more examples of usage of this term, see Citations:sonivius.

Declension

First/second declension.

Synonyms

• (noisy): sonāns, sonāx, sonōrus

References

• sŏnĭvĭus in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• sonivius in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• Félix Gaffiot (1934), “sŏnĭvĭus”, in Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Paris: Hachette, page 1,457/3.
• “sonīuius” on page 1,791/2 of the Oxford Latin Dictionary (1st ed., 1968–82)