• MATTER

1.

• s. Body, substance extended, corpus.
• Materials, materia [Vid: MATERIALS].
• Subject, thing treated, argumentum; quaestio; locus; e.g., magnus locus philosophiaeque proprius (Cic., Div. 2, 1, 3).
• Affair, business, res; negotium (business): causa (a suit at law, then business, general term): cura (cure of any business or office): an important or weighty matter, res major: a small or trifling matter, res minuta or parva: public matter, publicae res; res publica: to look after his domestic matters, res domesticas dispensare: anything is a difficult or hard matter, aliquid difficile est: to read them is a matter of incredible trouble, in eis legendis incredibilis quaedam molestia exhaurienda est: what is the matter? quid (quidnam) est? quid accidit?
• Cause, occasion, causa; occasio; materia; ansa.
• Substance generated in a swelling, pus (white and viscous matter, PROP. so called): sanies (matter mixed with blood, unripe matter): full of matter, purulentus: to turn to matter, to form matter, in pus verti; to ripen matter, pus maturare: to excite or generate matter, pus movere.

2. v. i. e., to import, alicujus momenti esse: if matters much, little, hoc multum, non multum (☞ not parum), magni, parvi refert or interest: that matter s nothing, id nihil refert: that matters everything, in eo omnia vertuntur; hoc caput rei est; inde omnia pendent: it matters, interest, refert (interest with a genitive, denotes the interest which one has in anything; refert, the importance which one attributes to a thing). ☞ Here observe the following rules; (a) the person to whom a thing matters is put in the genitive; but of the personal pronoun we find the ablatives, mea, tua, nostra, vestra; e.g., it matters to me, mea interest or refert [Vid: translator’s note on Zumpt, § 449]. But refert, in the Golden Age, takes only the ablative, never the genitive, of a substantive; frequently, however, interest and refert are used absolutely: (b) that which matters is expressed by an infinitive, or, by circumlocution, with an accusative and infinitive, or by an, quis, quid, ubi, quando, ut, ne, etc.; e.g., multum interest, te venire (Cic.); quid illius interest, ubi sis? (Cic.); illud mea magni interest, te ut videam (Cic.); (c) how much? is expressed sometimes by the adverbs magnopere, magis, maxime, minime, multum, permultum, plurimum, nihil, etc.: sometimes by a genitive of value; as, magni, permagni, parvi, pluris, tanti, quanti, etc.