plautus

• plōtus

From Proto-Italic *plautos (whence Oscan 𐌐𐌋𐌀𐌅𐌕𐌀𐌃 sg (plavtad, “sole of the foot or of a shoe”, abl.), Umbrian preplotatu, preplohotatu (“cruch, stamp down”, 3sg.ipv.II.)), from Proto-Indo-European *pl̥h₂-u-tós, from *pleh₂- (“flat”). Related to plaudō (“to strike, clap”).[1]

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈplau̯.tus/, [ˈpɫ̪äu̯t̪ʊs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈplau̯.tus/, [ˈpläːu̯t̪us]

plautus (feminine plauta, neuter plautum); first/second-declension adjective

1. (in specialised senses) flat, having the appearance of being trod flat
   1. flat-footed, having broad flat feet

      Synonym: plancus

      • 1839 [8th century CE], Paulus Diaconus, edited by Karl Otfried Müller, Excerpta ex libris Pompeii Festi De significatione verborum, page 238:

        Plōtōs appellant Umbrī pedibus plānīs nātōs . . . unde et Maccius poēta, quia Umber Sarsinās erat, a pedum plānitiē initiō Plōtus, posteā Plautus coeptus est dīcī.

        By the word plōtus the Umbrians call those born with flat feet . . . hence also the poet Maccius, being an Umbrian from Sarsinae and having flat feet, was at first called Plōtus, and then Plautus.

   2. flap-eared, having wide or large flat ears

      Synonym: flaccus

First/second-declension adjective.

• *pauta (see *patta)
• Plautus

Via feminine plauta:

• Gallo-Italic:
  • Piedmontese: piòta (“paw”)
• Gallo-Romance:
  • Franco-Provençal: pllôta (“paw”)

• “plautus” on page 1528 of the Oxford Latin Dictionary (2nd ed., 2012)

• “plautus”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• plautus 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)
• plautus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “plautus”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “plautus”, in William Smith, editor (1848), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London: John Murray