Osservazioni su sordidus, sordeo, sordes in ambito retorico e letterario

The notion of 'sordidus/sordeo/sordes' was particularly significant and successfult, in the linguistic and stylistic description of texts, oral or written, in the first two centuries CE (Seneca the Elder, Suetonius, Gellius); it is less used later, with occasional revivals by devotees of ancient doctrine (Fortunatianus, Sulpicius Victor, Martianus Capella, the Horatian scholiasts) or conversely by Christian polemicists (Lactantius, Arnobius). The main metalinguistic sense to be ascribed to the lexeme is that of 'vile',‘resigned', or ‘worn out' (its synonyms are from time to time 'tritus', 'vulgaris', 'humilis', etc.), possibly 'tainted’, ‘dull’, ‘blurred’, 'unrefined’, the opposite of ‘clear’, ‘bright', ‘splendid’ ('splendidus, 'luculentus', 'nitidus'). The definition applies, with negative connotation, generally to the tone and quality of speech or literary expression, but it takes on a very relevant role, when referred to individual 'verba', in the context of lexical selection, when this category of words is excluded from the rhetorical use.