cohortatio

Forms

cohortātiō f (genitive cohortātiōnis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin cohortor (“to encourage, exhort”) + -tiō.^[2][3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL dates it from the Rhetorica ad Herennium,^[3] which defines it as a speech that amplifies some offence and so moves the hearer to anger.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In general it is an exhortation or encouragement.^[2][4] The TLL counts 26 instances in Cicero and finds it very rare outside him except in the historians; the plural appears from Cicero on.^[3] Cicero writes to Atticus that his exhortation moves him greatly,^[4] Caesar and Nepos use it of a commander encouraging his soldiers, and Tacitus of a leader's address.^[4] In Church Latin it is an exhortation.^[5]

Timeline

• 86/82 BC – The Rhetorica ad Herennium, as a term of rhetoric.^[2][3][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of encouragement in letters and speeches.^[4][3][6]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar, of encouraging the legion.^[4][6]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus, of a leader's exhortation.^[4][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. An exhortation, encouragement, especially of soldiers by their commander.^[2][4][1]
2. (rhetoric) A speech that amplifies an offence to rouse the hearer to anger.^[2]

Word family

• cohortatiuncula

Related words

• cohortor
• hortor
• adhortātiō
• exhortātiō

References

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