cognatio

Forms

cognātiō f (genitive cognātiōnis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from cognātus (“related by blood”) with -tiō, beside nātiō (“birth, people”).^[2][3][1] ⟨Cognātus⟩ comes from nāscor (“to be born”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *gnāsk-e/o- (“to be born”) and Proto-Indo-European *ǵnh₁-sk-e/o- (“to be born”); he compares Umbrian natine (“patrician family”), from a similar suffixed noun.^[4] The jurist Paulus thought the name came from Ancient Greek συγγενεῖς (sungeneîs, “relatives”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's earliest example is the Rhetorica ad Herennium, which names kinship as a ground of natural law;^[2] Köbler's first source is Cicero.^[5]

Semantic evolution

It is blood relationship, kinship, and collectively the kinsfolk: Cicero writes of a son who bore the shame of his family, kin and name hard.^[2][6] An inscription has a guild of kinsmen, and Martial uses cāra cognātiō for the family feast of the Caristia.^[2] Seneca reports Pythagoras' teaching of the kinship of all things, and it is used of the affinity of plants, of a natural family, and of words: Varro follows the kinship of words.^[2]

Church Latin glosses it “kindred, relationship, progeny, descendant”.^[7]

Timeline

• 86/82 BC – the Rhetorica ad Herennium of kinship.^[2][5]
• 116–27 BC – Varro of the kinship of words.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of a man's kin.^[2][5]
• 40–102/103 AD – Martial of the Caristia.^[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Blood relationship, kinship, consanguinity; kinsfolk; a guild of kinsmen.^[2][6][1][7]
2. Relationship, affinity of things; a natural class.^[2][1]
3. (Ecclesiastical Latin) Progeny, descendants.^[7]

Related words

• cognātus
• nāscor

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 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. ^ 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson