appropero

Forms

approperō (present infinitive approperāre, perfect active approperāvī, supine approperātum); first conjugation^[1] It is also spelled adproperō.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin ad- + properō (“to hurry”).^[2][1][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It appears first in Plautus, who uses it intransitively, “to hurry up, hasten”: adproperābō, “I'll make haste”, in the Asinaria.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

In comedy it is common in commands such as adde gradum, adproperā, “step up, hurry” in Plautus' Trinummus, and Terence and Cicero's letters use it the same way.^[2] From the sense of hurrying somewhere it came to mean acting quickly, making haste to do something, with an infinitive in Ovid.^[2]

Livy uses it transitively of work done in haste, opus adeō approperātum est, the work was so hurried on that at sunrise the Volsci saw themselves walled in, and Silius Italicus speeds up his pace with it, approperō gressum.^[2][3] Lewis and Short list festīnō, accelerō and mātūrō as its synonyms.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 200 BC – Plautus uses it of hurrying somewhere.^[2][4]
• 190–159 BC – Terence uses it in the Andria.^[2]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero urges a correspondent to hurry.^[2]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses it transitively, of work done in haste.^[2][3]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it with an infinitive, “make haste to”.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To come hastily, hurry up, hasten.^[2][3]
2. (intransitive) To act quickly, make haste (to do something).^[2]
3. (transitive) To do hastily, to accelerate, speed up.^[2][3]

Related words

• properō

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 l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften