acceleratio

Forms

accelerātiō f (genitive accelerātiōnis); third declension^[1] Also spelt adcelerātiō.^[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin accelerō (“to hasten”) + -tiō.^[2][3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in the Rhetorica ad Herennium, which describes a continuous style of delivery as a loud hastening of the speech (orationis enuntiandae acceleratio clamosa).^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

The word is rare in Classical Latin.^[2][4] Hilary of Poitiers uses it of the hastening of the kingdom of heaven, which the Gospels teach believers to pray for, and Pseudo-Ambrose uses it to translate a biblical place name.^[4] Ecclesiastical and medieval Latin kept the sense “hastening”,^[5][6] and modern Latin also uses it for acceleration in physics.^[1] English acceleration was borrowed from it in the 1530s.^[7]

Timeline

• 3rd quarter of the 1st century BC – The Rhetorica ad Herennium uses it of hurried delivery.^[4][3][6]
• c. 315–367/368 AD – Hilary of Poitiers uses it of the coming of the kingdom of heaven.^[4][6]
• 1530s – English borrows it as acceleration.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hastening, speeding up; acceleration.^[2][3][5]
2. (physics) Acceleration.^[1]

Related words

• accelerō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e 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
6. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com