Etymologically
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adumbro

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [aˈdʊm.broː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [aˈdum.bro][1]

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

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