accelero

Forms

accelerō (present infinitive accelerāre, perfect active accelerāvī, supine accelerātum); first conjugation^[1] Also spelt adcelerō.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin ad- + celerō (“to hasten”),^[2][4] from celer (“swift”),^[5][6] which de Vaan traces to Proto-Indo-European *kel-i- (“speeding”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Accius,^[5] in a tragedy, of quickening one's pace (gressum adcelerasse).^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Transitively it meant quickening one's step, making something travel faster and speeding up an action, as reading in Quintilian;^[2][3] it was also used for hastening an event, such as death in Lucretius, a march in Caesar or someone's consulship in Tacitus.^[2][3] Intransitively it meant to hurry, in Cicero and Silius Italicus,^[2][4] and Ecclesiastical Latin kept the sense “make haste”.^[7] English accelerate was formed from its past participle.^[6]

Timeline

• 170–c. 90 BC – Accius uses it of quickening one's pace.^[2][3][8]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius speaks of things that hasten death.^[2][3][8]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it intransitively, “to hurry”.^[2][8]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar uses it of speeding up a march.^[3][8]
• c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian uses it of speeding up reading.^[2][8]
• AD 98–115 – Tacitus uses it of bringing forward a consulship.^[3][8]
• 1520s – English accelerate is formed from its past participle.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To quicken (one's pace).^[2][3]
2. To make (something) travel faster; to speed up (an action).^[2]
3. To hasten the occurrence or end of; to accelerate.^[2][3]
4. (intransitive) To hurry, make haste.^[2][4][7]

Word family

• accelerātiō
• accelerātus

Related words

• praecelerō
• English accelerate

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c 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 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de