Etymologically

castigatio

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 20 October 2026 at 13:23. This address is a permanent link to this version.

Pronunciation

  • Classical: [kas.tiːˈɡaː.ti.oː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [kas.tiˈɡat.t͡si.o][1]

Forms

castīgātiō f (genitive castīgātiōnis); third declension[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin castīgō (“to correct, punish”) + -tiō.[2][3][1] Wiktionary derives castīgō from an unattested noun ⟨*castis⟩ “purity”, related to castus (“chaste”), and a suffix taken from agō (“to drive, do”).[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Cicero,[4] whose letters to Atticus and philosophical works have it;[3] he says that all punishment and reproof should be free from insult.[5]

Semantic evolution

Its usual sense is reproof or reprimand, frequent in classical prose:[2][5] Velleius praises frequent admonition, sometimes reproof, and very rarely punishment, and Livy speaks of a silent reproof.[5] The TLL finds it often in Livy, Seneca, Pliny the Elder and Tertullian.[3] It is also corporal punishment, as in Quintilian, and in the jurists always with a genitive, as castīgātiō fūstium, a beating with clubs;[2][5] Apuleius has a horse whose ribs were bared to the bone by constant beating.[2] Pliny the Elder uses it of pruning trees and of exposing olive roots to the winter cold.[2][5] Macrobius uses it of moderating one's speech.[5] Church Latin has it as chastisement, punishment, correction,[6] and in medieval texts it is abstinence, self-restraint and chastity.[7]

Timeline

  • 81–43 BC – Cicero, of reproof.[5][3][4]
  • 59 BC–17 AD – Livy, of a silent reproof.[5][4]
  • 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder, of pruning.[2][4]
  • c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian, of corporal punishment.[2][4]
  • Medieval Latin – Abstinence and chastity.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A reproof, reprimand, correction.[2][5][1]
  2. Chastisement, corporal punishment.[2][5][1]
  3. The pruning of plants.[2][5][1]
  4. (Medieval Latin) Abstinence, self-restraint, chastity.[7]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  7. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill