candesco

Forms

candēscō (present infinitive candēscere, perfect active canduī); third conjugation, no passive, no supine stem^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin candeō (“to shine, be white”) + -scō, an inchoative verb.^[2][1][3] De Vaan traces candeō to Proto-Italic *kand-ē- (“to shine”) and explains its vowel, unexpected beside a root Proto-Indo-European *knd-, as arising in formations such as *knd-ro- (“shining”).^[4] Cognate with Welsh cann (“brilliant”) and Sanskrit चन्द्र (candrá-, “brilliant”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first example in the OLD is in Lucretius, of iron that grows red-hot in the fire: ferrum candescit in igni.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

Besides growing hot or red-hot, which Propertius, Ovid, Vitruvius and Pliny the Elder also use it for,^[2][3] it meant to grow white, as when Tibullus hopes his head may turn white with grey hair,^[2][6] and to grow bright: Ovid has the air turning purple and then, a little later, growing light at sunrise.^[2][6] Lewis and Short call it rare and mostly poetic.^[6]

Augustine uses it figuratively in corde candescere, to be pure of heart.^[5] Church Latin kept the senses of growing white, shining and glowing.^[7]

Timeline

• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it of iron growing red-hot in the fire.^[2][8]
• c. 55–19/18 BC – Tibullus uses it of a head growing white.^[2][8]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of the air growing light at sunrise.^[2][8]
• 354–430 AD – Augustine has corde candescere, to be pure of heart.^[5][8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To grow light, brighten.^[2][6]
2. To grow white.^[2][6]
3. To become hot, glow, grow red-hot.^[2][6]
4. (Late Latin, figurative) In corde candescere: to be pure of heart.^[5]

Word family

• excandēscō
• incandēscō
• recandescō

Related words

• candefaciō
• candēla
• candēns
• candentia
• candeō
• candicō
• candidō
• candidus
• candificō
• candor

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 Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de