acclamatio

Forms

acclāmātiō f (genitive acclāmātiōnis); third declension^[1] It is also spelled adclāmātiō.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin acclāmō (“to shout at”) + -tiō, from ad- and clāmō (“to shout”).^[2][4] De Vaan takes clāmō as a verb made from an old noun for a shout, from Proto-Indo-European *klh₁-m(o)-.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Rhetorica ad Herennium warns that too sharp and thin a shouting injures the windpipe, and Cicero uses it in the De oratore of a hostile shout of the people.^[2][3] Köbler dates it from Cicero.^[6]

Semantic evolution

It is any calling or shouting, as Columella has of a shepherd's calling.^[3] In the time of the Republic it was usually a shout of disapproval: Cicero writes of a speaker hindered not only by shouts but by abuse, and of how mild a mere shout is.^[3][2] Later it was more often a shout of approval, as Livy has of the crowd's cheers, and Suetonius uses it in the same way.^[3][2] Quintilian distinguishes it, made with the voice, from plausus, made with the hands.^[3] In rhetoric it is the final flourish that crowns a narration or proof, the Greek epiphōnēma.^[2][3] Stelten gives “exclamation, ceremonial greeting”, and in Medieval Latin it is also a complaint and a claim.^[7][8] English acclamation dates from the 1540s.^[4]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of hostile shouts.^[2][3][6]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy, of shouts of approval.^[2][3][6]
• c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian, of a final flourish.^[2][6]
• 1540s – acclamation appears in English.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. Shouting, calling out.^[2][3]
2. A shout of comment from a crowd, of disapproval or of approval; acclamation.^[2][3][1][7]
3. (rhetoric) A concluding exclamation, final flourish.^[2][3]
4. (Medieval Latin) A complaint; a claim.^[8]

Related words

• acclāmō
• clāmō
• English acclamation

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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 k l Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill