ambigo

Forms

ambigō (present infinitive ambigere); third conjugation, no perfect or supine stems, third person-only in the passive^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ambi- (“around”) + agō (“to drive, lead”).^[2][3][1] De Vaan traces agō to Proto-Italic *ag-e/o- (“to do, act”) and Proto-Indo-European *h₂eǵ-e/o- (“to drive, lead”).^[4] Cognate with Oscan acum (“to act (legally)”), Old Irish aigid (“drives”) and Ancient Greek ἄγω (ágō, “to drive, lead”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's first example is in Terence's Heauton Timorumenos: “Simus and Crito are disputing here about boundaries”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It means to dispute or contend, and especially to be undecided, to doubt, as Velleius' “if anyone doubts this”.^[2][5] Transitively it is to call into question or argue about, and in the passive to be in doubt; the impersonal passive ambigitur, there is a dispute, appears already in a law on an inscription.^[2] Tacitus uses it once in its literal sense, of going round one's homeland and avoiding it.^[5] It has no perfect: the TLL finds one only in grammarians.^[5][3] Church Latin glosses it to doubt.^[6]

Timeline

• 190–159 BC – Terence of a boundary dispute.^[2][7]
• c. 20 BC–30 AD – Velleius of doubting.^[2][7]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus of going around a place.^[5][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To go about or around.^[5][1]
2. To dispute, quarrel, contend.^[2]
3. To be undecided or uncertain, to doubt, hesitate, waver.^[2][5][1]
4. Transitively, to call in question, argue about; in the passive, to be at issue; impersonally, there is a doubt or dispute.^[2]

Word family

• ambiguus

Related words

• ambāgēs

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. ^ a b 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 f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de