alto

Forms

altō (present infinitive altāre); first conjugation, no perfect or supine stems^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin altus (“high”) + -ō.^[2][1][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is rare and late.^[3] The TLL's earliest examples come from undated translated texts, the Latin Doctrina apostolorum (nōn altābis tē, “you shall not exalt yourself”) and the Assumption of Moses, where God will raise the righteous up to heaven; the first dated author is Sidonius Apollinaris, who uses it of the sun “raised” towards the north and of things raised up.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

In Sidonius and Avitus of Vienne it is used of objects lifted or built up, such as raised posts, the body of Christ raised on the cross, a fringe of hair or a garment lifted above the knee.^[2] In Medieval Latin Aldhelm uses it for setting something upright, and the music treatise of Aurelian of Réôme for raising the pitch of a syllable.^[5] Du Cange also records alto as a separate word, a form of aldio (a half-free dependant).^[6]

Timeline

• c. 431–486 AD – Sidonius Apollinaris uses it of the sun raised in its course and of things lifted up.^[2][7][4]
• 639–709 AD – Aldhelm uses it in the sense “to set upright”.^[5][4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To raise, elevate, make high.^[3][7][8]
2. To exalt (a person); reflexively, to set oneself up.^[2]
3. (Medieval Latin) To set upright.^[5]
4. (Medieval Latin, music) To raise the pitch of a note or syllable.^[5]

Word family

• exaltō
• inaltō

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre
7. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.