adoptivus

Forms

adoptīvus (feminine adoptīva, neuter adoptīvum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin adoptō (“to adopt”) + -īvus.^[2][1] De Vaan lists adoptō from Plautus on among the derivatives of optō (“to choose”), which he traces to Proto-Italic *opeje- (“to choose, grab”) and Proto-Indo-European *h₁op-eie-.^[3] He compares Umbrian upetu (“let him select”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its earliest known use is in a speech of Scipio the Younger quoted by Gellius,^[2][4][5][6] who speaks of an adopted son (filium adoptivum), as opposed to a natural one.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

It describes what is obtained or constituted by adoption: an adoptive son, father, brother or sister, the family one enters by adoption, its rites (sacra) as opposed to those of one's father, and a name or nobility acquired by adoption, in Cicero, Ovid, Suetonius and the jurists.^[2][4] Ovid and Martial transfer it to grafting: a grafted tree bears “adoptive” fruit that is not its own.^[2][4] Palladius uses it the same way in his poem on grafting.^[4][5] In Ecclesiastical Latin it means adopted.^[7]

Timeline

• 185/184–129 BC – Scipio the Younger speaks of an adopted son.^[2][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero speaks of the rites of an adoptive family.^[4][6]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of the grafted fruit of a tree.^[2][6]
• c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius contrasts a natural son with an adopted one.^[4][6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Obtained or constituted by adoption, adoptive; adopted.^[2][4]
2. Of plants, grafted, not natural to the tree.^[2][4]

Related words

• adoptiō
• English adoptive

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson