commaculo

Forms

commaculō (present infinitive commaculāre, perfect active commaculāvī, supine commaculātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin con- + maculō (“to stain”).^[2][3][1] maculō is formed from macula (“spot, stain”), which de Vaan tentatively traces to Proto-Italic *smatlo- and Proto-Indo-European *smh₁-tlo- (“wiping”), comparing Ancient Greek σμάω (smáō, “to wipe clean”); he finds the connection possible, though a stain as a “smearing” is not a compelling semantic link.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its earliest quotations are in Cicero and Sallust.^[2][3] Cicero uses it of reputation: the TLL quotes sī Caelius sē istō īnfīnītō ambitū commaculāsset, “if Caelius had stained himself with that boundless canvassing”.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

Lewis and Short call it rare but classical.^[5] Literally it means to stain deeply: Virgil has hands stained with the blood of children, and Tacitus altars of the gods stained with a man's own blood.^[2][5] Statius uses it of ritual pollution.^[2] Sallust and Tacitus use the participle of men defiled by crimes, and Sallust has it of sullying oneself by association with Jugurtha.^[2][5] Valerius Maximus writes of someone who stained a whole village with the name of a crime.^[2]

It lives on in Paulinus of Nola and the Theodosian Code,^[5] and in Ecclesiastical Latin means to stain or pollute.^[6]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of a stained reputation.^[2][7]
• 86–34 BC – Sallust uses it of men defiled by crime.^[2][7]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of hands stained with blood.^[2][7]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus uses it of altars stained with blood.^[2][7]
• c. 353–431 AD – Paulinus of Nola uses its participle of blood.^[5][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To stain deeply, defile.^[2][5]
2. To make ritually unclean, pollute.^[2]
3. To corrupt morally, contaminate.^[2]
4. To sully (one's own or another's reputation), disgrace.^[2][5]

Related words

• maculō
• macula

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c 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 f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de