aemulator

Forms

aemulātor m (genitive aemulātōris, feminine aemulātrīx); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin aemulor + -tor, the agent noun of the verb “to rival, emulate”.^[2][3] De Vaan derives aemulor from aemulus (“emulous, rival”), which he explains as a diminutive of a noun meaning “imitation”, going back to Proto-Italic *aimo- and Proto-Indo-European *h₂ei-mo- (“imitation”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first known use is in Cicero's letters to Atticus, which call Servilius an imitator of Cato.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Latin it meant one who emulates or imitates another: Seneca calls the good man God's pupil and imitator, and calls a pure mind an imitator of God,^[2] and Apuleius uses it of a poet's follower in song.^[3] Lewis and Short give it the good sense of a zealous imitator, and Georges records it once with an accusative in Sallust's Histories.^[5][6]

Christian writers kept it: Tertullian calls the devil an imitator of divine things,^[3] and in the Vulgate it renders “zealous”, as in aemulatores sunt legis “they are zealous for the law” in Acts.^[5] Wiktionary also gives the sense rival.^[1] English took it as emulator in the 1580s, first meaning a rival or competitor.^[7]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of an imitator of Cato.^[2][3]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca calls the good man God's imitator.^[2]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius uses it of a poet's follower.^[3]
• c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian calls the devil an imitator of divine things.^[3]
• 390–406 AD – The Vulgate uses it for those zealous for the law.^[5]
• 1580s – Borrowed into English as emulator.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. One who emulates; an imitator, follower.^[2][5][3]
2. (Ecclesiastical Latin) One zealous for something, a zealot.^[5][8]
3. A rival.^[1]

Related words

• aemulor
• aemulus
• English emulator

Usage notes

Ambrose uses aemulatores of those who imitate good men and good things, and aemulus of the envious.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson