battuo
Pronunciation
Forms
battuō (present infinitive battuere, perfect active battuī); third conjugation, no supine stem[1] It is also spelled battō and batuō.[2]
Etymology
The origin is uncertain; the word is rare in literary Latin.[1] The OLD and the TLL take it to be Gaulish, and the TLL compares Irish ⟨bath⟩ “slaughter, death”.[2][3] Wiktionary considers a Gaulish or Germanic source, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European ⟨*bʰedʰh₂-⟩ “to stab, dig” or a separate root ⟨*bʰat-⟩ “to strike”.[1]
Earliest recorded meaning
The OLD's earliest citation is from Plautus, “to pound, beat”.[2] Köbler dates Plautus c. 250–184 BC.[4]
Semantic evolution
It meant to pound, beat, as in Plautus, and in Suetonius, intransitively, to fence.[2] Lewis & Short call it very rare.[5]
Late Latin battuālia “fencing exercises” passed through Old French bataille into English battle about 1300.[6] Its compound dēbattuere gave Old French debatre and English debate in the late 14th century, and it survives in Italian battere and French battre.[6][5]
Timeline
- c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it.[2][4]
- c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius uses it of fencing.[2][4]
- c. 1300 – English battle is recorded.[6]
Meanings
Verb
Word family
- battuālia
- dēbattuō
- battuārium
Related words
References
- ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c d e f g h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
- ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
- ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com