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Ex-voto, this everyday Latin word

2022-07-01T04:15:57.360Z


A religious term, “ex-voto” has two meanings. Jean-Loup Chiflet retraces the course of this word from Latin.


“According to the wish made”

Designating a sign of gratitude but also, by denigration, a bad painting whose subject is pious, we sometimes notice ex-voto abbreviated in the form evs, because this masculine noun, invariable, comes from the Latin formula

ex voto suscepto

, “according to the wish made”.

The term is composed of the Latin

ex

, "following, according to", and voto, ablative of

votum

, "vow".

This borrowing from the Latin language entered the French language in 1643 through the poems of Saint-Amant.

A jumble of bizarre ex-votos, burnouses, gold threads, red hair, which hung along the walls

Alphonse Daudet, "Tartarin of Tarascon", 1872.

Read alsoAgenda, this Latin word for everyday life

Note: “The first “attested” votive deposits are located in Cyprus around the 1st millennium BC.

AD (…).

The Roman and Gallo-Roman ex-voto is sometimes coated with the abbreviated Latin formula VSLM, which means “Votum Solvit Libens Merito”, translated as “he fulfilled his vow, willingly, as it should be” .

»

Excerpt from

Give Us Our Daily Latin

.

Find the entire book on our Figaro Store.

Source: lefigaro

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