addecet

Forms

addecet (present infinitive addecēre); second conjugation, impersonal^[2][3] Only the form addecet itself is recorded.^[4]

Etymology

It is from Latin ad- + decet (“it is fitting”),^[2][4][1] with ad- as an intensive prefix according to Lewis and Short.^[3] De Vaan traces decet to Proto-Indo-European *deḱ-eh1-, the root of Ancient Greek δέχομαι (dékhomai, “to accept”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found in Ennius and very often in Plautus.^[3][4] An Ennius line quoted by Gellius says that a man should live with true courage: sed virum vērā virtūte vīvere animātum addecet.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

The TLL notes that in Plautus the word nearly always ends an iambic line.^[4] It takes an accusative of the person (ut mātrem addecet familiās, “as befits a mother of a family”), an infinitive, or both; in the Bacchides someone is told that it befits him to be silent (tē mūtum esse addecet).^[6][7] After the early poets it is found in Publilius Syrus and in Seneca's Oedipus.^[8] In Ecclesiastical Latin it means it is fit or it behooves.^[9]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it often at the end of a line.^[4][10]
• 204–169 BC – Ennius uses it in a tragedy.^[3][10]
• 1st century BC – Publilius Syrus uses it in a maxim.^[6][10]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it in the Oedipus.^[8][10]

Meanings

Verb

1. (impersonal) It is fitting or proper, it befits, it behooves.^[2][3][6]

Related words

• decet

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
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 Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
8. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
9. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
10. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de