Etymograph

English

flatus

Flatus comes from Latin flātus ‘blowing, wind, fart’, and goes back to flō ‘to breathe, blow’.

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEflō‘to breathe, blow’
  2. Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEflātus‘blowing, wind, fart’
  3. Englishearliest quotation 1940flatus

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Earlier history uncertain.

Lineage

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEflō‘to breathe, blow’
  2. Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEflātus‘blowing, wind, fart’
  3. Englishearliest quotation 1940flatus

Earliest quotation: 1940, Walter Robson Humphries, William Ogilvie and the Projected Union of the Colleges: “The point of quoque with illos is that those…”

first attested First attested in the 1660s–1670s (as stated in the etymology)

The story

First attested in the 1660s–1670s.

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₁-

blow, blast, bliss, bladder, fluent, flux, feeble, confluence, fluency, blithely, fluvial, blare, blasé, bleat, blather, 45 more

through Latin flō ‘to breathe, blow’

inflation, flavor, inflate, soufflé, conflate, 18 more

Today it means

noun Gas generated in the digestive tract.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Latin flō / flatus

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