coacto

Forms

coāctō (present infinitive coāctāre, perfect active coāctāvī, supine coāctātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is a frequentative, from Latin coāctus¹ + -tō, made on the past participle of cōgō (“to drive together, compel”).^[2][3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lucretius uses it twice, both times with an infinitive, a creeping cloud conturbat et immūtāre coāctat, “throws everything into disorder and forces it to change”, and frequent hiccups wore people out, nervōs et membra … coāctāns, forcing their sinews and limbs to contract.^[3][2][4]

Semantic evolution

Lewis & Short and Georges know it only from these two lines of Lucretius.^[4][5] The TLL adds Late Latin examples: Arnobius may have written that the sky is pressed together into clouds (the manuscript reads a different verb), and Gregory the Great writes that heavenly providence held the devil back from carrying out his malice, where it means “to restrain”.^[3] The TLL also notes that Sardinian cattare “to press” continues it.^[3]

English coact “to compel”, from about 1400, was taken from it.^[6]

Timeline

• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it twice with an infinitive.^[3][2][7]
• 297–310 AD – Arnobius may use it of the sky drawn together into clouds.^[3][7]
• c. 1400 – English coact is formed from it.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To compel, force (with an infinitive).^[2][4][5]
2. (Late Latin) To press together; to restrain.^[3]

Usage notes

Köbler records a separate adverb coāctō “under compulsion”, from the participle coāctus¹, in the Itala.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
6. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de