Etymology 1
Two possibilities include: (Can this(+) etymology be sourced?)
Etymology 2
From mundus (adjective). In the sense “universe”, calque of Ancient Greek κόσμος (kósmos).
Noun
mundus m (genitive mundī); second declension
- ornaments, decorations, dress (of a woman)
- implement
- universe, world, esp. the heavens and the heavenly bodies
c. 37 BCE – 30 BCE,
Virgil,
Georgics 1.5:
- Vōs, ō clārissima mundī / lūmina, lābentem caelō quae dūcitis annum; /
- Oh ye, most radiant lights of the heavens, who lead the gliding year in the sky
8 CE,
Ovid,
Fasti 5.545–546:
- Sed quid et Ōrīōn et cētera sīdera mundō
cēdere festīnant, noxque coartat iter?- But why are Orion and the other star-patterns hurrying to depart from heaven, and night is curtailing its journey?
(It is May; nighttime is becoming shorter, and Ovid imagines even the mighty Orion (constellation) hurrying from the sky because Rome will soon celebrate the Temple of Mars Ultor; see also: Mars (mythology).)
- mankind (inhabitants of the earth)
Lucan,
Pharsalia 5.469–471:
- miserīque fuit spēs inrita mundī, / posse ducēs parvā campī statiōne diremptōs / admōtum damnāre nefās.
- The unfortunate world's hope turned out in vain, the hope that the leaders, separated by a small field distance, could condemn the impiety drawing near.
405 CE,
Jerome,
Vulgate Evangelium secundum Ioannem.3.16:
- Sic enim dilexit Deus mundum ut filium suum unigenitum daret, ut omnis qui credit in eum non pereat, sed habeat vitam aeternam.
- For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, so that whoever believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.
- (Medieval Latin) century
- (Medieval Latin) group of people
References
- “mundus1”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “mundus2”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “mundus”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
- mundus 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)
- mundus 1 mundus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
- mundus 2 mundus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
- Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book, London: Macmillan and Co.
- the universe: rerum or mundi universitas
- the perfect harmony of the universe: totius mundi convenientia et consensus
- God made the world: deus mundum aedificavit, fabricatus est, effecit (not creavit)
- God is the Creator of the world: deus est mundi procreator (not creator), aedificator, fabricator, opifex rerum
- a citizen of the world; cosmopolitan: mundanus, mundi civis et incola (Tusc. 5. 37)
- “mundus”, in Samuel Ball Platner (1929) Thomas Ashby, editor, A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, London: Oxford University Press
- De Vaan, Michiel (2008) Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, pages 394-5