absorptio

Forms

absorptiō f (genitive absorptiōnis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin absorbeō (“to swallow up”) + -tiō, on the stem of its past participle.^[2][3][4] The verb is made of ab- and sorbeō (“to suck in, swallow”),^[1] which de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *sorfeie- and Proto-Indo-European *srobʰ-eie- (“to take various sips, slurp”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lewis and Short record it in the sense of a drink in a passage of Suetonius' Life of Nero, but mark the reading as doubtful.^[2] Otherwise it is a Late Latin word: Conte cites Ambrosiaster and Augustine for it in the sense of a merging or interpenetration.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In Jerome's short commentary on the Psalms, absorptio is said to stand for victory, as when the apostle writes that death “is swallowed up in victory”.^[7] Georges and Gaffiot treat it as another form of absorbitio.^[8][9]

Medieval writers used it for devouring and gluttony and, by extension, for a gulf or abyss;^[10] British sources use it for the engulfing of land, as when Matthew Paris tells of cities and many thousands of people swallowed up in Savoy in 1250.^[11] English took it over in the 1590s as absorption, “a swallowing up”.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 366–400 AD – Ambrosiaster uses it of things merging into one another.^[6][3]
• 354–430 AD – Augustine has it in his sermons.^[6][3]
• c. 383–419/420 AD – Jerome's commentary on the Psalms explains it as standing for “victory”.^[7][3]
• second half of the 12th century – Hildegard of Bingen uses it of devouring.^[10][3]
• 1590s – Borrowed into English as absorption.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (Late Latin) A swallowing up; a merging or interpenetration.^[6][7]
2. (Late Latin) A drink, a beverage (in a doubtful reading of Suetonius).^[2]
3. (Medieval Latin) Devouring, voracity; the engulfing of land or people.^[10][11]
4. (Medieval Latin) A gulf, an abyss.^[10]

Related words

• absorbeō
• sorbeō
• English absorption

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
8. ^ Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
9. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
10. ^ a b c d Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
11. ^ a b Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press