coacervo

Forms

coacervō (present infinitive coacervāre, perfect active coacervāvī, supine coacervātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin con- + acervō (“to heap up”), from acervus (“heap”).^[2][3] The origin of that noun is uncertain: Rix connects it with acus (“chaff”) through a pre-Italic *akesuo-, which de Vaan finds possible in form but a guess in meaning.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's first citation is from Varro, who speaks of the bones of Gauls heaped up in one place: Gallorum ossa … ibi coacervata.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

It means to gather into a heap or crowd together: Caesar has corpses heaped up and enemies crowding at narrow gates.^[2] Lewis & Short find it most often in Cicero and mostly in prose.^[6] Of money and property it is to amass, as Cicero's money piled up by every means, and Livy's gold and silver.^[2][6] It also took abstract objects, griefs in Ovid, arguments and commonplaces in Cicero, who notes that likely points, small in themselves, carry weight when heaped together.^[2][6] Catullus uses it of building a tomb by piling up earth, and the jurist Javolenus of adding up sums.^[2] Lactantius heaps up errors,^[6] and Church Latin keeps the sense to heap up, collect.^[7]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro, of bones heaped up.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of money amassed and of arguments.^[2][5]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar, of corpses piled up.^[2][5]
• c. 250–317 AD – Lactantius, of errors heaped up.^[6][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To heap up, pile up; to crowd together.^[2][6][1]
2. To amass, collect (money, possessions).^[2][1]
3. To accumulate (griefs, arguments).^[2][6]
4. To make by heaping up (a mound, a tomb).^[2]
5. To add together, total.^[2][1]

Word family

• coacervātim
• coacervātiō

Related words

• acervus
• acervō
• English coacervate

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ 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 e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson