For this activity, I chose to analyze the word “alibi” (alibī).
Alibī,a Latin adverb meaning “elsewhere” is the 2446th most frequent word, but one that can be very common in English, especially for those familiar with Law Enforcement. Alibī, in English, originally found its way into colloquial language as an adverb in the late 17th century, keeping true to its Latin origins. However, alibī has since become modified in English, and as of the late 18th century, takes on the form of a noun rather than an adverb, which some traditionalists take issue with.
Alibī was most often used by Tertullian, Apuleius, and Pliny the Younger. Alibī, in Latin, most often appears in collocation with alibī, and second most to alius.
Examples:
“Hoc igitur modo etiam a theatro separamur, quod est privatum consistorium inpudicitiae, ubi nihil probatur quam quod alibī non probatur. Ita summa gratia eius de spurcitia plurimum concinnata est, quam Atellanus gesticulatur, quam mimus etiam…” Tertullian, De Spectaculis.
Translation: By this command we are cut off once for all from the theatre, the proper home of all impurity, where nothing wins approval but what elsewhere has no approval.
“…philologi nimis acute loquuntur, ad Varronem transferamus etenim sunt Antiochia , quae iste valde probat , Catulo et Lucullo alibi reponemus , ita tamen si tu hoc probas , deque eo mihi rescribas velim”
Translation received from “Apology. De spectaculis. With an English translation by T.R. Glover. Minucius Felix; with an English translation by Gerald H. Rendall based on the unfinished version by W.C.A. Kerr”. Accessed at https://archive.org/stream/apologydespectac00tertuoft/apologyDespectac00tertuoft_djvu.txt
