adhaeresco

Forms

adhaerēscō (present infinitive adhaerēscere, perfect active adhaesī, supine adhaesum); third conjugation, no passive^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin adhaereō (“to stick to”) + -scō, an inchoative verb,^[2][3] or ad- with haerēscō.^[1] De Vaan traces haereō (“to stick”) to Proto-Italic *χais-ē-, and finds no credible cognates.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has it first, in the Poenulus, of birdlime that should not stick to slings.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Literally it is to stick fast or become lodged, as Caesar's spear that by chance stuck in a tower.^[2][3] The TLL notes that it takes the dative less often than adhaereō, while a range of prepositions goes with it from Cato on.^[5] Lewis & Short say the figurative use belongs almost entirely to Cicero: things that stick in the mind, devotion to justice and honour, and shipwreck, as men run aground on the Sirens' rocks from a desire to learn, or a speaker who gets stuck in the flow of words.^[3][2] Curtius uses it of hangers-on who attach themselves to a great fortune.^[2] The TLL adds that its inchoative force weakens in later Latin.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, of birdlime sticking.^[2][6]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar, of a spear lodged in a tower.^[2][3][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of devotion to justice and of shipwreck on the Sirens' rocks.^[2][6]
• 1st century AD – Curtius, of hangers-on.^[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To stick, adhere, become attached; of weapons and fire, to lodge, take hold.^[2][3][1]
2. To stick in the memory.^[2]
3. To attach oneself to a person as a hanger-on; to cleave to a moral quality.^[2][3]
4. To become fixed in a place.^[2]
5. To run aground; to come to a standstill, get stuck.^[2]

Related words

• adhaereō
• haereō
• haerēscō

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de