Donum

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Banana tree
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Donum

Post by Banana tree »

Does donum mean gift as in talent or gift as in present? Or perhaps both?

Rufus Gulielmus
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Post by Rufus Gulielmus »

Salve, Banana Tree!

I've always taken donum to mean "gift" as in a present, or something that you'd give to somebody--like a donation.

Rufus

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benissimus
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Post by benissimus »

Gift, usually in the literal sense of something given. I would avoid reading or writing donum on its own to mean talent (this would be ingenium). Donum, when qualified by a genitive or possibly an adjective, sometimes can refer to a positive personal trait (haec Musarum dona - Horace.Epist.2.I.243). Even then, it is not completely abstract (i.e. you can literally read "these things given by the Muses").

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bedwere
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Post by bedwere »

Of course you can be the recipient of a donum, a divine gift: that's when it becomes a talent. This is true in Ecclesiastical Latin where we have the septem dona Spiritus sancti, donum prophetiae, donum linguarum, etc.

Banana tree
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Post by Banana tree »

I see. Thanks guys.

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