aversio

Forms

āversiō f (genitive āversiōnis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin āvertō (“to turn away”) + -tiō.^[2][1][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first dated use is in Seneca's De clementia, for the loathing that follows a cruel ruler.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Its literal sense, “a turning away”, appears only in set phrases: ex aversione “from behind” in the Bellum Hispaniense,^[4][5] and in the jurists aversione or per aversionem, of buying, selling or letting “in the lump”, without exact reckoning.^[4][2] Quintilian uses it as a rhetorical term for a turn that leads the hearer away from the question in hand.^[2][4]

Christian writers used it for the soul's turning away from God, opposed to conversio,^[6] and Niermeyer gives “apostasy, defection” as well as “aversion, hatred”.^[7][8] The MLW also records a medical sense, nausea.^[9] English aversion comes from it, partly through French.^[10]

Timeline

• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it for loathing.^[2][3]
• c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian uses it as a figure of rhetoric.^[2][3]
• 2nd century AD – The jurist Africanus uses aversione “for a lump sum”.^[2][3]
• 354–430 AD – Augustine uses it for the will's turning away from God.^[6][3]
• 1590s – English borrows it as aversion, “a turning away”.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A turning away;^[4][5] ex aversione, from behind.^[4][5]
2. Abhorrence, loathing.^[2][4]
3. (rhetoric) A turn that distracts the hearer from the point at issue.^[2][4]
4. (law) aversione, per aversionem: in the lump, for a lump sum.^[2][4]
5. (Late Latin) A turning away from God, apostasy, defection.^[6][7][8]
6. (Medieval Latin, medicine) Nausea.^[9]

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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
6. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
8. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
9. ^ a b Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
10. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com