comminuo

Forms

comminuō (present infinitive comminuere, perfect active comminuī, supine comminūtum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin com- + minuō (“to lessen”).^[2][3][1] De Vaan traces minuō to Proto-Italic *minu-je/o- (“to lessen”), from a nasal present Proto-Indo-European *mi-n(e)-h₁- (“to make less”).^[4] Cognate with Oscan menvum (“to lessen”), Ancient Greek μινύθω (minúthō, “to lessen”) and Ancient Greek μείων (meíōn, “smaller”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's first example is Ennius' Annals: “he smashed his brain with a stone”.^[2] De Vaan dates it from Plautus.^[4]

Semantic evolution

It means to break in pieces or shatter, as Plautus' doors and posts broken down with axes, and to break up or pulverize, as the crumbled cake in his Stichus.^[2][5] Lewis & Short explain that it makes small either by breaking into parts or by taking parts away from the whole, so it also means to lessen.^[5][1] Figuratively it is to break or crush: Cicero writes that no duty is so sacred that greed will not shatter it, and of a man crushed by a praetor's power.^[2] Church Latin glosses it to break into small pieces.^[6]

Timeline

• 204–169 BC – Ennius of a smashed skull.^[2][7]
• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of doors broken with axes and of crumbled cake.^[5][2][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of crushing persons and duties.^[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To break in pieces, shatter.^[2][5][1]
2. To break up, pulverize.^[2][1]
3. To lessen, diminish.^[5][1]
4. Figuratively, to smash, crush; to break the power of a person.^[2][5]

Word family

• comminūtiō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c 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 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de