Etymologically
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comedo

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈkɔ.mɛ.doː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈkɔː.me.do][1]

Forms

comedō (present infinitive comedere or comēsse, perfect active comēdī, supine comēsum or comēssum or comēstum); third conjugation, irregular alternative forms[1] The participle is usually comēsus, also comēssus and comēstus.[2][1] Plautus has the old subjunctive comedim.[3]

Etymology

It is from Latin con- + edō (“to eat”).[4][1] De Vaan traces edō to Proto-Italic *ed- (“to eat”) and Proto-Indo-European *h₁ed- (“to eat”), comparing Oscan edum (“to eat”), Ancient Greek ἔδω (édō, “to eat, devour”), Hittite ed- (“to eat”) and Lithuanian ė́sti (“to feed”).[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has it first: in the Casina some people could eat up a whole cargo boat of food.[4][6]

Semantic evolution

It is to eat up or consume food, and Catullus has teeth that could chew up flint.[4] Plautus also uses it reflexively of a man who frets and eats himself up.[4] Very often it is to squander money or property on feasting and pleasure: in the Bacchides gold is wanted “to give to whores and to eat up in brothels”, and in the Mostellaria someone eats up a man's property in his absence.[4] From there it came to mean to eat away or destroy, as in Juvenal's informer who will snatch what is left of a devoured nobility, and Martial has someone devouring boys with his eyes.[4] Church Latin glosses it to eat, devour, consume entirely.[7]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of eating, fretting and squandering.[4][6]
  • 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus of teeth that could chew flint.[4][6]
  • c. 67–c. 127 AD – Juvenal of a nobility eaten away.[4][6]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To eat up, consume; of teeth, to chew up.[4][2][7][1]
  2. Reflexively, to fret, chafe.[4][1]
  3. To squander money or property on feasting and riotous living; to eat up someone's property.[4][1]
  4. To eat away, destroy.[4]
  5. To devour with the eyes.[4]

Word family

  • comedus
  • comēsor
  • comēstibilis
  • comestiō
  • comēstūra
  • comesus
  • excomedo
  • comēstor

Usage notes

A separate noun comedō, genitive comedōnis, “a glutton, a spendthrift”, was formed from the verb and is found in Lucilius and Varro;[4][2][6] in New Latin it is also a blackhead in the skin.[1] Festus gives a by-form comedus.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  3. ^ 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 h i j k l m n o Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ 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 e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson