A casual Twitter exchange with @TLockyer and @exploreclassics (on Latin not having a single word for “volcano”) reminded me that Latin does seem to have a rather large number of words for earthquake … ecce (cutting and pasting from English-to-Latin Word Search Results for earthquake at Perseus; go there for links to L&S):
- chasmatias – an earthquake which leaves chasms
- concussio – an earthquake
- epiclintae – earthquakes that move with a horizontal motion
- mycematiasan – earthquake accompanied by a rumbling noise
- mycetiasan – earthquake attended with a rumbling noise
- ostes – a kind of earthquake
- palmatias – a slight earthquake
- rhectae – a kind of earthquake
Ostes seems to be the best-attested, but just in case you are confronted with someone trying to impress you with that Eskimo-words-for-snow thing, now you can respond …
rogueclassicism 