amburo

Pronunciation

• IPA (Classical): [amˈbuː.roː]^[1]
• IPA (Ecclesiastical): [amˈbuː.ro]^[1]

Forms

ambūrō (present infinitive ambūrere, perfect active ambussī, supine ambustum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ambi- (“around”) + ūrō (“to burn”).^[2][3][1] De Vaan traces ⟨ūrō⟩ to Proto-Italic *ouse/o- (“to burn”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ews-e/o- (“to burn”), and notes that combūrō arose by misdividing ⟨ambūrere⟩ as ⟨am-būrere⟩.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Among the OLD's earliest citations are Plautus and Accius.^[2] Köbler dates Plautus c. 250–184 BC.^[5]

Semantic evolution

It meant to burn around or on the surface, scorch, char, and of a liquid to scald, as in Cicero; to char and harden the point of a stake, as in Seneca; to burn all over, as in Accius; and of cold, to make frostbitten, as in Tacitus.^[2] Lewis & Short contrast it with exūrere “to burn up entirely”, and note figurative uses: Cicero's ambustae fortūnārum reliquiae “the charred remains of my fortune” and Livy's damnātiōne collēgae prope ambustus “nearly singed by his colleague's condemnation”.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it.^[2][5]
• 170–c. 90 BC – Accius uses it of burning all over.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of scorching.^[2][5]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus uses it of frostbite.^[2][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To burn around or on the surface, scorch, char; to scald.^[2]
2. To char and harden (a stake).^[2]
3. To burn all over.^[2]
4. (of cold) To make frostbitten.^[2]

Word family

• ambustiō
• sēmiambustus

Related words

• ūrō
• combūrō

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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press