adedo

Forms

adedō (present infinitive adedere or adēsse, perfect active adēdī, supine adēsum or adēssum or adēstum); third conjugation, irregular alternative forms^[1] The participle is adēsus, less correctly adessus.^[2][3] Lucan has the contracted adest for adēdit.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin ad- + edō¹ (“to eat”).^[4][3][1] De Vaan traces edō¹ to Proto-Italic *ed- and Proto-Indo-European *h1éd- (“to eat”).^[5] Cognate with Oscan edum (“to eat”), Ancient Greek ἔδω (édō, “to eat”), Hittite ed- and Old Irish ithid (“eats”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's earliest citations come from Sisenna and Cicero;^[4][3][6] Cicero has it in a verse translation of the liver of Prometheus, eaten and renewed: cum adesum inflatu renovatumst iecur.^[4][3][6]

Semantic evolution

It is to begin to eat, to eat away at or gnaw, as the snakes in Livy that crept out and gnawed the liver of a victim.^[4][2] Figuratively it is to eat into resources, as Cicero's money not eaten into but abundant, and in poetry to wear down an enemy's strength.^[4] Of fire it is to scorch, as in Virgil's door-posts half eaten by flame, and of water to erode, as Horace's stones worn by a river.^[4] It also means to eat up entirely and, of fire or of wealth, to consume or squander, as in Tacitus' men who had run through their fortunes.^[4] Lewis & Short note that finite forms are rare and mostly poetic, and that Cicero's prose does not have them.^[2]

Timeline

• 120–67 BC – Sisenna, of grain eaten up.^[4][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of Prometheus' liver and of money eaten into.^[4][3][6]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil, of door-posts scorched by fire.^[4][6]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus, of squandered fortunes.^[4][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To begin to eat, eat away at, nibble, gnaw.^[4][2][1]
2. To eat into (resources); to wear down, exhaust.^[4][1]
3. Of fire: to scorch; of water: to erode.^[4][1]
4. To eat up entirely, consume; to squander.^[4][1]

Related words

• ambadedō
• ambedō
• comedō
• exedō
• obedō
• peredō
• subedō
• edō¹

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f 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 h i j k l m n o Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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 f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de