Etymologically
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aggredior

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [aɡˈɡrɛ.di.ɔr][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [aɡˈɡrɛː.di.or][1]

Forms

aggredior (present infinitive aggredī, perfect active aggressus sum); third (-iō variant) conjugation, deponent[1] Also spelled adgredior.[2][3] Plautus has fourth-conjugation forms such as aggredīmur, aggredībor and the infinitives aggredīrī and aggredīrier;[2][4] Ennius has a perfect participle adgretus.[2][4]

Etymology

It is from Latin ad- + gradior (“to step, walk”).[2][3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus on, meaning to go up to someone: in the Curculio a character says adgredior hominem, salūtō adveniēns, “I go up to the man and greet him as I come”.[2][4][5]

Semantic evolution

From approaching a person, often to speak to or ask something of them, it came to mean approaching with hostile intent: to attack a person, and in the historians an army.[2][4] Sallust uses it of working on people with money, that is, of bribery.[2][4] From setting about a person it passed to setting about a task, and with an infinitive to beginning or attempting to do something;[2] Seneca's tragedies also use it of seizing power by force.[2] Lewis and Short note that Cicero and the historians use it very often, Horace never.[4] The grammarian Priscian lists it among the verbs the ancients also used in a passive sense.[3]

Ecclesiastical Latin keeps the senses “approach, undertake”.[6] English aggression, from the 1610s, comes through French from the Latin noun aggressiō, made from its perfect participle.[7]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of going up to someone.[2][5]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of attacking a person and of beginning to speak of something.[2][5]
  • c. 50 BC – Caesar uses it of attacking an enemy with all one's forces.[2][5]
  • 86–34 BC – Sallust uses it of tampering with people by money.[2][4][5]
  • 1610s – English aggression “unprovoked attack” comes from its derivative aggressiō.[7]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To go or advance towards; to approach.[2][4]
  2. To go up to a person to speak to them; to accost, address, solicit.[2][4]
  3. To approach with hostile intent; to attack, assault.[2][4]
  4. (military) To attack, beset.[2]
  5. To work on a person; to try to corrupt or bribe.[2][4]
  6. To set about a task; to undertake, deal with.[2][4][6]
  7. With an infinitive: to set oneself, begin, attempt.[2][4]
  8. To try to obtain by force; to seize an opportunity.[2]

Word family

  • aggressiō
  • aggressor
  • aggressūra
  • aggressus

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