“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” .
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Excerpt from
Give Us Our Daily Latin
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