apparitio

Forms

appāritiō f (genitive appāritiōnis); third declension^[1] It is also spelled adpāritiō.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin appāreō (“to appear; to attend on an official”) + -tiō.^[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero first uses it, in a letter of recommendation (Ad familiares 13.54), of long service in which he came to know a man's loyalty.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In the classical language it was the service of an appāritor, a public attendant of a magistrate,^[4] and by metonymy the attendants themselves: Cicero writes of the staff that a governor took with him, and the Digest and Ammianus use it of the officials of a department.^[2][3][4] In Cicero's De officiis it seems to stand for apparatio, “provision”, and the two words are confused in the manuscripts.^[2][5]

Christian writers took it in the sense of appāreō “appear”: Jerome writes of the resurrection and appearance of the Lord, and Augustine of appearances of the dead.^[5] Georges and Stelten give the senses appearance, manifestation, the epiphany of Christ,^[4][6] and in Medieval Latin it was a name of the feast of the Epiphany.^[7][8] The MLW records it for appearing in general, appearance in court, perception and the manifestations of angels and saints.^[9]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of service and of a governor's attendants.^[2][10]
• c. 383–419/420 AD – Jerome writes of the appearance of the risen Lord.^[5][10]
• c. 390 AD – Ammianus uses it of the staff of the praetorian prefecture.^[4][10]
• 354–430 AD – Augustine writes of appearances of the dead.^[5][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. Service or attendance, especially as a public attendant.^[2][4]
2. (metonymic) The attendants, the staff.^[2][3]
3. Provision, preparation (perhaps by confusion with apparatio).^[2]
4. (Ecclesiastical Latin) An appearance, manifestation, especially of Christ.^[4][6][5]
5. (Medieval Latin) The feast of the Epiphany.^[7][8]
6. (Medieval Latin) Appearance in court; perception.^[9]

Related words

• appāritor
• apparātiō

References

1. ^ a b c 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
5. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
8. ^ a b du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre
9. ^ a b Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
10. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de