adaperio

Forms

adaperiō (present infinitive adaperīre, perfect active adaperuī, supine adapertum); fourth conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ad- + aperiō (“to open, uncover”).^[2][1][3] Lewis and Short take the prefix as intensive.^[4] De Vaan traces the simple verb to Proto-Italic *ap-wer-je- (“to open”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂(e)p (“off”) and *h₂u̯er-i(e/o)- (“to cover”); its opposite is operiō “to cover”.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's earliest example is in Varro, who lists among the signs of fever in animals an open mouth with moist breath (adapertum ōs).^[2][3][6]

Semantic evolution

It means to open wide, as a door, gate or mouth, and Lewis and Short note that Cicero does not use it.^[2][4] Livy has attackers fall on gates thrown open and a tunnel opened up;^[2][4] Seneca opens a book;^[2][4] Curtius speaks of a king's ears opened to the slanders of the envious.^[2][4] In medical writing it was used of loosening the bowels and of opening a vein,^[2] and it could mean to uncover or bare, as the head, or to reveal to view and to knowledge.^[2][7]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro uses it of the open mouth of a feverish animal.^[2][8]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses it of gates and of a mine broken open.^[2][4][8]
• 14–37 AD – Celsus uses it in medical senses.^[2][8]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it of opening a book.^[2][8]
• c. 45–96 AD – Statius uses it of the truth being revealed.^[2][8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To open wide, throw open (a door, the mouth); to unroll a book.^[2][4]
2. (figurative) To open (the ears) to information.^[2]
3. To break open;^[2] (medicine) to loosen (the bowels).^[2]
4. To make by opening, open up (a vein).^[2]
5. To uncover, bare, expose to view; to reveal.^[2][7]

Word family

• adapertilis
• adapertiō
• sēmiadapertus
• adapertus

Related words

• aperiō
• exaperiō
• operiō

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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
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. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de