asporto

Forms

asportō (present infinitive asportāre, perfect active asportāvī, supine asportātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin abs- + portō (“to carry”), with ⟨abs-⟩ reduced to ⟨as-⟩ before ⟨p⟩.^[2][3][4] De Vaan traces portō to Proto-Italic *porto/ā- and Proto-Indo-European *pr̥to- (“passed, crossed”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus uses it of carrying people off by ship, across the sea.^[4]

Semantic evolution

It is to carry off, take away, remove: Cicero has a statue carried off from a temple of Ceres, and Nepos has all their goods carried to Salamis.^[4] Of persons, it is to carry away, especially by ship, to transport, as in Plautus and Terence.^[4] Livy uses it of the ships that carried away money.^[2] Lewis & Short note that classical writers use it only in prose.^[4] The Vulgate has asportāte ossa mea vōbīscum, carry my bones with you.^[4] Church Latin glosses it to bring.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of carrying off by ship.^[4]
• 190–159 BC – Terence of carrying someone away.^[4]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of a statue carried off.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To carry off, take away, remove.^[2][4][1]
2. To carry away by ship, transport.^[4][1]

Word family

• asportātiō

Related words

• portō
• aufero

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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
6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson