laetus

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈlae̯.tus/, [ˈɫ̪äe̯t̪ʊs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈle.tus/, [ˈlɛːt̪us]

Unknown; possibly related to alacer (“happy, glad, cheerful”).[1] Often compared to lardum (“fat, bacon lard”) and largus (“abundant, bountiful”),[2][3] presupposing an earlier form *lai-to and earlier *lai-es, but de Vaan finds this reconstruction problematic.[4]

• lētus (Medieval Latin)

laetus (feminine laeta, neuter laetum, comparative laetior, superlative laetissimus, adverb laetē); first/second-declension adjective

1. happy, cheerful, glad

   Synonyms: felix, libēns, alacer, hilaris, hilarus, vīvus

   Antonyms: trīstis, infelix, maestus, miser, aeger

   Laetus sum. ― I (a man) am happy.

   Laeta sum. ― I (a woman) am happy.

2. fertile, luxuriant, lush, rich
   • 234 BCE – 149 BCE, Cato the Elder, De Agri Cultura 6:

     Ubi ager crassus et laetus est sine arboribus, eum agrum frumentarium esse oportet.

     Grain should be sown in heavy, rich, treeless soil.

First/second-declension adjective.

• laetificō
• laetificus
• laetitia
• laetō

• Old French: lié
  • Norman: liement
• Galician: ledo
• Italian: lieto
• Portuguese: ledo
• Spanish: ledo

From Gothic *𐌻𐌴𐍄𐍃 (*lēts) (attested in Gothic 𐍆𐍂𐌰𐌻𐌴𐍄𐍃 (fralēts, “freeman”)), from Proto-Germanic *lētaz, from Proto-Germanic *lētaną (“to let, rent, free, release”). Attested in the Lex Salica. Cognate with Old Frisian lēt (“serf”), Old English lǣt (“serf”), English let, liege.

• litus

laetus m (genitive laetī); second declension (Late Latin)

1. a foreign bondman who received a piece of land to cultivate, for which he paid tribute to his master; a serf.

Second-declension noun.

• laeticus
  • Old French: lige, liege (see there for further descendants)

• → Old Saxon: lido, liddo (< litus)
• → Old High German: litus
  • Middle High German: *lite
    • German: Lite

• Ernout, Alfred, Meillet, Antoine (1985) “laetus”, in Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine: histoire des mots‎ (in French), 4th edition, with additions and corrections of Jacques André, Paris: Klincksieck, published 2001, pages 337b–338a
• “laetus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “laetus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• laetus 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)
• laetus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • the laughing cornfields: laetae segetes
    
• “laetus”, in William Smith, editor (1848), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London: John Murray