Albus color în latină și în română
Albus color in Latin and Romanian

Summary/Abstract: Conferred with many primarily positive attributes, the colour white can be expressed in Latin by the use of concrete terms such as: argentum,-i; cera,-ae; lac, lactis; nix, nivis or ebur,-oris, from which we have in Romanian several age-old words: argint, ceară, lapte, nea, and also the neologism ivóriu, borrowed from the French ivoire < lat. ěbŏrěus (3), which derives from ěbŭr,-ŏris ‘ivory’. The aforementioned lexemes together with their adjectival equivalents, and belonging to the Latin and the Romanian language respectively, suggestively denote the idea of “white” – as silver, wax, milk, snow, or ivory. In this context, the present study aims at analyzing the way in which these various shades of white are used, in Latin and, similarly, in Romanian literature, to represent “bodily candour”, which has been considered throughout history, from antiquity until modern times, a veritable prototype for human beauty.

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