accenseo

Forms

accēnseō (present infinitive accēnsēre, perfect active accēnsuī, supine accēnsum); second conjugation^[1] Lactantius and Salvian spell it adcēnseō.^[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin ad- + cēnseō (“to assess, count”), “to count in addition”.^[3][2][1] Varro instead connected the noun ⟨accēnsus⟩ “attendant” with acciō (“to summon”), because such men were often summoned for necessary tasks,^[2][4] while the epitome of Festus says the reserve troops were called ⟨accēnsī⟩ because they were added to the roll of the legions.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The participle as a noun appears first, in a fragment of Plautus' comedy Frivolaria: ubi sunt accēnsī?, “where are the supernumeraries?”.^[2] The finite verb is very rare;^[4][3][2] Ovid has a minor divinity say numine sub dominae lateo atque accenseor illi, “I hide under my mistress's power and am counted as her attendant”.^[4][3][2]

Semantic evolution

Livy uses the participle of the horn and trumpet players added to the centuries.^[2] The noun accēnsus¹ became the usual word for the attendant of a magistrate and for the supernumerary troops of the army.^[4][2]

In Late Latin the verb came back in the general sense “to reckon among, assign to”: Lactantius writes that the east is assigned to God,^[2] and Symmachus and Salvian use it of things counted among others.^[2] Ecclesiastical Latin kept the sense “to add, reckon in addition, number”.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses the participle accēnsī as a noun.^[2][6]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses the participle of musicians added to the centuries.^[2][6]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses the finite verb in the passive.^[4][3][6]
• c. 250–317 AD – Lactantius uses it in the sense “to assign to”.^[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To attach (to someone) as an attendant; to count among (someone's) companions.^[3][4][2]
2. (Late Latin) To reckon among, assign to, add to.^[2][5][1]

Word family

• accensitus
• accēnsus¹

Related words

• cēnsus

References

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