lubricus

From Proto-Italic *slouβrikos, from Proto-Indo-European *slewbʰ- (“slip, slide”).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈluː.bri.kus/, [ˈɫ̪uːbrɪkʊs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈlu.bri.kus/, [ˈluːbrikus]

lūbricus (feminine lūbrica, neuter lūbricum); first/second-declension adjective

1. slippery, slimy
2. fleeting
   • 8 CE, Ovid, Fasti 5.475–476:

     mandantem amplectī cupiunt et bracchia tendunt:
     lūbrica prēnsantēs effugit umbra manūs

     [As he is] entrusting [his request to them], they long to embrace [him] and extend their arms: the fleeting shade eludes their grasping hands.
     (The ghost of Remus appears to his foster-parents Faustulus and Acca Larentia; see also Romulus and Remus.)

3. inconstant
4. deceitful
   • 4th-century CE, Jerome of Stridon (St. Jerome), Vulgate, 26:28

     Lingua fallāx nōn amat vēritātem et os lūbricum operātur ruīnās.

     A deceitful tongue loveth not truth: and a slippery mouth worketh ruin.

     (trans.: Douay-Rheims Bible)

5. hazardous, unsteady
6. tricky

First/second-declension adjective.

• lūbricitās
• lūbricō
• lūbricum

• “lubricus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “lubricus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• lubricus 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)
• lubricus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.