Etymologically
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anquiro

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [aŋˈkʷiː.roː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [aŋˈkʷiː.ro][1]

Forms

anquīrō (present infinitive anquīrere, perfect active anquīsīvī, supine anquīsītum); third conjugation[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin ambi- (“around”) + quaerō (“to seek”).[2][1][3] Festus, as reported by Paul the Deacon, already explained it as "to seek around".[3][4] De Vaan traces quaerō to Proto-Italic *kwai-s-e/o-, perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *kueh₂-i- (“to acquire”), but calls the further etymology uncertain.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's first citations are Cicero's: in the Tusculan Disputations a sufferer seeks an end of his pains in love of death, and in De officiis people inquire whether a thing is expedient or not.[2]

Semantic evolution

It means to seek on all sides, look about for, search out:[4][2] Cicero writes of seeking someone on whom to vent one's poison.[4] It is also used with an indirect question, to inquire whether.[2] With a genitive, ablative or dē it is a term of law, to conduct a judicial inquiry or to bring an indictment: Livy has two men appointed to inquire into high treason.[2][1] Accius, according to Marius Victorinus, wrote it with ⟨ag-⟩.[3]

Timeline

  • 170–c. 90 BC – Accius, who wrote it with ⟨ag-⟩.[3]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of seeking an end of pain.[2]
  • 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of a judicial inquiry into treason.[2]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To seek or search for, try to discover; to inquire into.[2][4][1]
  2. (law) To conduct a judicial inquiry; to bring an indictment.[2][1]

Word family

  • anquisitio

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g 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 c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill