appetitio

Forms

appetītiō f (genitive appetītiōnis); third declension^[1] Also spelled adpetītiō.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin appetō (“to reach after, desire eagerly”) + -tiō.^[2][4][1] That verb is formed from ad (“to, towards”) and petō (“to make for, seek”),^[1] which de Vaan traces to a root meaning “to fly”.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler records it first in the Rhetorica ad Herennium,^[6] which defines courage as rērum magnārum adpetītiō, “the seeking of great things”, set against contempt for lowly things.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The TLL notes that among the authors with full indexes it appears only in the Rhetorica ad Herennium, Cicero and Seneca's letters.^[4] Cicero uses it once in its literal sense, of a man in a dream trying three times to grasp the sun,^[2][4] and otherwise as a philosophical term: it renders Ancient Greek ὁρμή (hormḗ, “impulse”), the impulse that moves us to act,^[3][7] and is set against dēclīnātiō, aversion;^[7] he also uses it of a rational, chosen desire.^[8] With a genitive it is the desire for something, as Cicero's appetītiō prīncipātūs, “the craving to be first”, and Seneca's appetītiō societātis, the desire for company.^[7][8][4] Gellius uses it of the appetite for food.^[3][7] In Ecclesiastical Latin it means grasping, inclination, appetite and desire,^[9] and the British writer Adam Marsh uses it of the gratification of worldly desires.^[10]

Timeline

• 86/82 BC – The Rhetorica ad Herennium defines courage as the seeking of great things.^[4][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it for the Greek hormḗ, the impulse to act.^[3][7][6]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it in his letters.^[4][6]
• c. 165 AD – Gellius uses it of the appetite for food.^[3][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A reaching or grasping after something.^[2][3]
2. A natural or instinctive desire, impulse;^[2][3][7] (philosophy) the impulse to act, Greek hormḗ.^[2][3][7]
3. A voluntary or rational desire, a deliberate aiming at something.^[2][8]
4. A desire for something; the appetite for food.^[3][7][9]

Related words

• appetēns
• appetenter
• appetentia
• appetibilis
• appetissō
• appetītīvus
• appetītus
• appetō

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
10. ^ Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press