adumbro

Forms

adumbrō (present infinitive adumbrāre, perfect active adumbrāvī, supine adumbrātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ad- + umbrō (“to shade”),^[2][1] from umbra (“shade, shadow”).^[3][1] De Vaan connects umbra with Lithuanian ùnksna (“shade”) and reconstructs it as *unksrā-.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first author is Cicero, who uses it of sketching or outlining: of qualities that nature, as it were, sketches in a young character, of portraying grief in speech, and of things done only for show.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

Its literal sense is to cast a shade over something, to screen or cover it, as when Columella has vines shaded with mats of palm leaves; figuratively it is to obscure the truth.^[2][6] From painting it took the senses of rendering in light and shade and of sketching in outline; these led on to outlining in words, imitating, and producing a mere semblance, feigning: Curtius uses it of copying another people's customs.^[2]

In Church Latin it also means to represent imperfectly, to foreshadow.^[7][1] It survives in Italian adombrare and Old French aombrer.^[3] English formed adumbrate in the 1580s from its past participle, in the sense “to outline, sketch”.^[8]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of sketching, outlining in words and feigning.^[2][5]
• 1st century AD – Curtius uses it of imitating foreign customs.^[2][5]
• 1st century AD – Columella uses it of shading vines.^[2][6][5]
• 1580s – English forms adumbrate from the past participle.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To shade, screen, cover;^[2][6] (figurative) to obscure the truth.^[2][6]
2. To depict in light and shade, to sketch; to apply shading or colour to.^[2]
3. To outline, silhouette; to sketch out in words.^[2][6]
4. To produce a likeness of, imitate.^[2]
5. To produce a false appearance of, feign, counterfeit.^[2]
6. (Ecclesiastical Latin) To represent imperfectly, to foreshadow.^[7][1]

Word family

• adumbrātim
• adumbrātiō

Related words

• inumbrō
• obumbrō
• umbrō
• umbra
• English adumbrate

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. ^ 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 c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com