afflo

Forms

afflō (present infinitive afflāre, perfect active afflāvī, supine afflātum); first conjugation^[1] The unassimilated spelling adflō is also found.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin ad- (“to, towards”) + flō (“to blow”).^[2][1] De Vaan traces flō to Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₁- (“to blow”) (zero grade *bʰlh₁-), with a question mark.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Varro on,^[4][5] who uses it of the wind: a farmhouse should not face the quarter from which a heavier wind usually blows.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is used above all by the poets; of prose writers Seneca has it often, earlier ones rarely (Varro, Cicero, the Rhetorica ad Herennium, Livy).^[5] Its first sense is to breathe or blow on something, said of people, animals and winds.^[2][3] From this came the breathing in of love or prophetic inspiration, as in Virgil's afflata est numine (“she was breathed upon by the god's power”),^[2] and the blighting breath of poison, fire or lightning, which Petronius applies figuratively to a plague-like influence on the young.^[2] With an accusative and a dative it means to breathe an emotion, heat or light into someone; of sounds and smells, to waft towards; and Pliny the Elder uses it of an edge that merely grazes the body.^[2] In Ecclesiastical Latin it means to inspire or teach.^[6] The TLL compares Romanian afla and Spanish hallar (“to find”), after Meyer-Lübke.^[5]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro uses it of the wind blowing.^[2][4][7]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it of fire imparting heat to the limbs.^[2][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it in prose.^[5][7]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of divine inspiration and of the blast of a thunderbolt.^[2][7]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses it of the wind at an army's back.^[2][7]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of an edge grazing the body.^[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To breathe or blow on or towards (said of people, animals or the wind).^[2][3]
2. (intransitive, of winds) To blow; of fortune, to blow favourably.^[2]
3. To breathe on so as to inspire love or prophecy.^[2][6]
4. To breathe on harmfully, to blight or blast (of poison, fire, lightning, evil influences).^[2]
5. To breathe (an emotion) into someone; to impart heat or light.^[2]
6. (of a sound or smell) To waft towards.^[2]
7. To touch lightly, graze.^[2]
8. (Ecclesiastical Latin) To inspire, teach.^[6]

Word family

• afflator
• afflātus

References

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