aspernor

Forms

āspernor (present infinitive āspernārī, perfect active āspernātus sum); first conjugation, deponent^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from ab- (“away”), the stem of spernō (“to spurn”) and the verb ending -or, with ⟨ab-⟩ reduced to ⟨as-⟩ as in asportō.^[2][1][3][4] De Vaan traces ⟨spernō⟩ to Proto-Italic *sperne/o- and a nasal present of Proto-Indo-European *sp(ʰ)er- (“to kick”), cognate with Sanskrit स्फुरति (sphuráti, “pushes away with the foot”), Lithuanian spìrti (“to kick”) and Hittite išpar- (“to trample”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan gives Plautus as its first author.^[5] In the Asinaria a young man complains that his embrace is being refused (meum autem hic aspernātur).^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is to push away, as Varro's piglets that turn away from mothers short of milk, and more often to feel or show aversion, to scorn or spurn persons, as Scipio did not despise that sort of soldier (Livy), and things or statements, as the philosophy that Rome never scorned and claims that everyone's mind rejects (Cicero).^[2][3] It is also to refuse something offered, to turn a deaf ear to complaints, to repulse a lover, and to refuse to accept a judgement or rule.^[2]

Church Latin glosses it “despise”.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a refused embrace.^[2][5][7]
• 116–27 BC – Varro of sows rejecting their young.^[2][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of scorn and refusal.^[2][7]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of soldiers not despised.^[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To push away, repel.^[2][1]
2. To scorn, spurn, despise.^[2][1][6]
3. To refuse, reject (an offer); to repulse (a person).^[2][1]
4. To refuse to accept (a judgement, rule).^[2]

Word family

• aspernabilis
• aspernamentum
• āspernātiō
• aspernator
• āspernanter

Related words

• spernō
• contemnō
• dēspiciō

Usage notes

Döderlein distinguishes spernere, despising as an inward feeling, holding cheap, from aspernārī, the outward expression of that feeling, rejecting with aversion something offered or pressed on one, like recūsāre and abnuere.^[8]

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 j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c 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 Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
8. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper