abruptus

Forms

abruptus (feminine abrupta, neuter abruptum; comparative abruptior, superlative abruptissimus); first/second-declension participle^[1][2]

Etymology

Used as an adjective, it is the past participle from Latin abrumpō (“to break off”).^[1][2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Catullus has a figurative tide carry someone down into a sheer abyss.^[1]

Semantic evolution

Lewis & Short give its sense as broken off, and especially of places hard to reach: precipitous, steep, as Livy's place broken off to a depth of a thousand feet.^[1][2] As a noun abruptum is a steep place or abyss, as in Virgil, and the plural abrupta rough and dangerous ways, as in Tacitus.^[2][4] Figuratively it is uncompromising or aloof, as Manilius' Torquatus;^[1][2] Tacitus uses it of stubborn defiance.^[1][2] Of style it is abrupt, too short: Quintilian speaks of Sallust's brevity and abrupt kind of speech, and the elder Seneca of passages that end so suddenly they are not short but abrupt.^[1][2] Pliny the Elder uses it of the tortoise's short hiss, Virgil of sudden storms, and Silius of a precipitate temper.^[1] In Late Latin in abruptō means in a desperate situation, as in Ammianus.^[4] Church Latin glosses it steep, precipitous, broken off.^[5]

Timeline

• 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus of a sheer abyss.^[1]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of a precipitous place.^[2]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of sudden storms.^[1]
• c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian of abrupt style.^[2]
• c. 390 AD – Ammianus of a desperate situation.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Precipitous, steep, sheer; as a noun, a steep place.^[1][2][5]
2. Uncompromising, aloof; stubborn.^[1][2]
3. Of style, broken, too short, abrupt; short-lived.^[1][2]
4. Of storms, sudden; of people, precipitate.^[1]

Related words

• abrumpō
• rumpō

Usage notes

Justin says the promontory of Rhegium is so named because its Greek name means “broken off”.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson