abalieno

Forms

abaliēnō (present infinitive abaliēnāre, perfect active abaliēnāvī, supine abaliēnātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ab- (“away”) + aliēnō (“to make another's, estrange”).^[2][3][1] aliēnō is from aliēnus (“of another”), from alius (“other”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *al-jo- and Proto-Indo-European *h₂el-io- (“another”), cognate with Ancient Greek ἄλλος (állos); the suffix of aliēnus he calls unclear.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has it first: in the Mercator of handing a woman over to another, in the Asinaria of getting rid of a picture, and in the Miles gloriosus of being parted from a man.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

Its legal sense is to transfer property to another, give up possession of it.^[2][1] More widely it is to remove or separate, and to turn people or their minds away, to estrange, as Cicero says of those who had alienated others by envy.^[2] Livy uses it of minds turned away from the sense of their own troubles.^[2] Scribonius Largus has it of opium numbing the senses, and with mente of people who lose their wits after drinking a certain plant.^[2] Inscriptions spell it ⟨abaleno⟩.^[5] Stelten gives “alienate, separate, remove, legally transfer”.^[6] English abalienate, a civil-law term from the 1550s, comes from its participle.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, of transferring a person and of separation.^[2][5][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of estranging people.^[2][7]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy, of minds turned away.^[2][7]
• c. 47 AD – Scribonius Largus, of numbing the senses.^[2][7]
• 1550s – English abalienate in civil law.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (law) To transfer (property) to another, give up possession of, sell.^[2][8][1][6]
2. To remove, take away, dispose of; to separate.^[2][8][1]
3. To turn away, alienate, estrange.^[2][8][1]
4. To detach (the mind) from something.^[2]
5. To make insensible, numb;^[2] mente abaliēnārī, to wander in mind.^[2]

Word family

• abaliēnātiō
• abaliēnātus

Related words

• aliēnō
• aliēnus
• alius
• English abalienate

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
8. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press