attributio

Forms

attribūtiō f (genitive attribūtiōnis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin attribuō (“to assign, allot”) + -tiō, a noun of action.^[2][3][1] A spelling ⟨adt-⟩ is also found, in the Lex Iulia municipalis, the Lex Ursonensis and many manuscripts.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero is the first to use it, in two technical senses: in his letters for the transfer of a debt to another person, who then had to pay it, and in De inventione for the qualities attributed to a person or thing in rhetorical argument.^[2][4][5]

Semantic evolution

The legal sense of an assigned debt also appears in laws preserved in inscriptions.^[2] Frontinus uses the word more generally for the allotment of water,^[2][3] and Apuleius for the lot assigned to each person, explaining the Greek name of Nemesis by it.^[2][4] The rhetorical sense, the attribute itself, was a technical term of the rhetoricians, and the plural is used only in this sense.^[3]

In Ecclesiastical Latin it meant simply a giving or bestowal.^[6] English borrowed it in the 15th century as attribution, first meaning the act of bestowing or assigning.^[7]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it for the assignment of a debt and as a rhetorical term for attributes.^[2][5]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius uses it for the lot destined for each person.^[2][5]
• late 15th century – Borrowed into English as attribution.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of assigning or granting something; an allotment.^[2]
2. One's destined lot.^[2][4]
3. (law) The assignment of a debt to another person, who becomes responsible for paying it.^[2][4]
4. (rhetoric) The attribution of a quality; an attribute.^[2][3]
5. (Ecclesiastical Latin) A giving, a bestowal.^[6]

Related words

• attribuō
• tribuō
• English attribution

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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com