circummunio

Forms

circummūniō (present infinitive circummūnīre, perfect active circummūnīvī, supine circummūnītum); fourth conjugation^[1] Plautus has the old spelling circummoenītī.^[2][3][4] Manuscripts often confuse it with circumvenīre.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is from Latin circum- (“around”) + mūniō (“to fortify”).^[2][4][1] De Vaan lists it, from Plautus on, among the derivatives of moenia (“walls”), which he traces to Proto-Italic *moini- (“protective wall”) and, with a question mark, Proto-Indo-European *(H)moi-ni- (“construction”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found first in Plautus,^[2][5] where a character says ita vinclis custodiisque circummoeniti sumus, “so walled in are we by chains and guards”.^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

Lewis & Short note that it is frequent in the historians and rare elsewhere.^[3] Its main use is military: to shut in by a wall or siegeworks, as in Caesar of enemies enclosed with a rampart and ditch, or held in by a chain of forts, and in the Bellum Africum and the Bellum Hispaniense.^[2][3][6] Caesar also uses it of men shut in like wild beasts.^[3][6] Columella uses it in farming for fencing round an orchard with a wall or ditch, protecting young plants with cages, and staking vines all round with reeds.^[2][6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, circummoenītī, “walled in” by chains and guards.^[2][4][7]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar, of shutting in an enemy with siegeworks.^[2][3][7]
• 1st century AD – Columella, of fencing an orchard.^[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To surround with a wall or siegeworks; to shut in, blockade.^[2][3][1]
2. To fence round; to secure all round.^[2][6]

Word family

• circummūnītiō

Related words

• mūniō
• moenia
• commūniō¹

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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 f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de