postliminium

English

Alternative forms

• postliminy

Etymology

Latin postliminium, after + a threshold.

Noun

postliminium (countable and uncountable, plural postliminia)

1. (historical, Roman antiquity) The return to his own country, and his former privileges, of a person who had gone to sojourn in a foreign country, or had been banished, or taken by an enemy
2. (law) The right by virtue of which persons and things taken by an enemy in war are restored to their former state when coming again under the power of the nation to which they belonged.
   • 1826, James Kent, Commentaries on American Law:

     Postliminium […] is a right recognized by the law of nations , and contributes essentially to mitigate the calamities of war

References

• “postliminium”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Latin

Etymology

From post (“after”) +‎ līmen (“threshold”) +‎ -ium.

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /post.liːˈmi.ni.um/, [pɔs̠(t̪)lʲiːˈmɪniʊ̃ˑ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /post.liˈmi.ni.um/, [post̪liˈmiːnium]

Noun

postlīminium n (genitive postlīminiī or postlīminī); second declension

1. the postliminy, the return to one's own country and one's former privileges

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter).

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	postlīminium	postlīminia
Genitive	postlīminiī postlīminī1	postlīminiōrum
Dative	postlīminiō	postlīminiīs
Accusative	postlīminium	postlīminia
Ablative	postlīminiō	postlīminiīs
Vocative	postlīminium	postlīminia

¹Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).

Derived terms

• postlīminiō

Descendants

• → English: postliminy, postliminium
• → Italian: postliminio

References

• postliminium in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “postliminium”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• postliminium in Georges, Karl Ernst, Georges, Heinrich (1913–1918) Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th edition, volume 2, Hahnsche Buchhandlung