pius

pius

1. (anatomy) nape

From Proto-Italic *pwījos, from Proto-Indo-European *puHyós (“purifying”), from *pewH-.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈpi.ʊs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈpiː.us]

pius (feminine pia, neuter pium, comparative magis pius, superlative maximē pius or summē pius or piissimus or pīssimus or pientissimus or piissumus or pientissumus, adverb piē); first/second-declension adjective

1. pious, devout
2. dutiful, loyal, conscientious
   • c. 190 BCE – 185 BCE, Plautus, Amphitryon 5.1.33–36:

     At ego faciam, tu idem ut aliter praedices,
     Amphitruo, piam et pudicam esse tuam uxorem ut scias.
     de ea re signa atque argumenta paucis verbis eloquar.
     omnium primum: Alcumena geminos peperit filios.

     • Translation by Henry Thomas Riley

       But I'll make you, Amphitryon, to be holding other language; that you may understand that your wife is dutiful and chaste, upon that subject I will in a few words discover some tokens and some proofs. In the first place of all, Alcmena has given birth to two sons.

3. good, blessed
4. (Late Latin) holy

First/second-declension adjective.

• impius

• impius
• piē
• pietās
• piō
• pium

• Italian: pio
• Old French: pius, piu
  • Middle French: pieux
    • French: pieux
      • → Romanian: pios
• Old Galician-Portuguese:
  • Galician: pío
  • Portuguese: pio
• Sicilian: pìu
• Spanish: pío
• → English: pious

• “pius”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “pius”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "pius", in Charles du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• “pius”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner; Henry William Auden (1894), Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • a regular, formal war: bellum iustum (pium)
    
  • (ambiguous) to show an affectionate regard for a person's memory: memoriam alicuius pie inviolateque servare
    
  • (ambiguous) to be an earnest worshipper of the gods: deos sancte, pie venerari
    
• pius in Ramminger, Johann (16 July 2016 (last accessed)), Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700‎^[2], pre-publication website, 2005-2016
• “pius”, in William Smith, editor (1848), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London: John Murray
• Tantimonaco, Silvia (2021), “Piissimus and pientissimus: two nonexistent superlatives of pius?”, in Journal of Latin Linguistics‎^[3], volume 19, number 2, archived from the original on 11 July 2025, pages 281–307

From English fuse.

pius

1. fuse