accolo

Forms

accolō (present infinitive accolere, perfect active accoluī, supine accultum); third conjugation^[1] It is also spelled adcolō.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin ad- + colō¹ (“to inhabit, till”).^[2][1][4] The simple verb goes back to Proto-Italic *kʷele/o- and Proto-Indo-European *kʷelh₁-e/o- (“to go round”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in a tragedy of Naevius,^[5][2] with an accusative: vōs quī accolitis Histrum fluvium, “you who dwell by the river Hister”.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

It meant to live near or beside a place or a person, usually with an accusative.^[2][6] Plautus uses it without an object, addressing a neighbour Apollo who lives close to the house.^[2][7] Accius and Cicero have it too,^[8][3] and Virgil has dum domus Aenēae Capitōlī immōbile saxum accolet, “as long as the house of Aeneas dwells by the immovable rock of the Capitol”.^[2] In prose the TLL finds it often from Livy on, especially in the geographers:^[8] Livy speaks of the peoples living by the Etruscan sea and the Tiber, and Pliny the Elder uses the passive of a river lined with towns on both banks.^[2][9] The present participle accolentēs meant the people of the neighbourhood.^[2][6] Of territory it meant to lie near: Tacitus speaks of the part of Gaul that borders the Rhine.^[2][7]

Medieval writers used it in the sense “to inhabit”.^[10]

Timeline

• c. 235–200 BC – Naevius uses it of those living by the Hister.^[2][11]
• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it without an object.^[2][11]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of the house of Aeneas by the Capitol.^[2][11]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses it of peoples living by the sea and the Tiber.^[2][11]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses accolentēs for the people of a region.^[2][6][11]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus uses it of territory bordering a river.^[2][11]

Meanings

Verb

1. To live near or beside (a place or person), dwell by.^[2][3]
2. (absolute) To be a neighbour;^[2][6] accolentēs, the people of the neighbourhood.^[2][6]
3. (of territory) To lie near, border on.^[2][7]
4. (Medieval Latin) To inhabit.^[10]

Related words

• accola

References

1. ^ a b c d 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 q r s t 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. ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b 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 e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
9. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
10. ^ a b Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
11. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de