comporto

Forms

comportō (present infinitive comportāre, perfect active comportāvī, supine comportātum); first conjugation^[1] It is also spelled conportō.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin con- + portō (“to carry”).^[2][4][5] De Vaan thinks ⟨portō⟩ is probably formed on a noun Proto-Italic *porto- (“passage, crossing”), from Proto-Indo-European *port-o-, cognate with Umbrian portatu (“let him carry”) and Sanskrit पिपर्ति (píparti, “brings across”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus,^[5] who has booty brought together in the Persa and a man carrying everything from his house onto a ship in the Rudens.^[4]

Semantic evolution

It means “to carry together, transport”, especially to a market or other centre: Varro has oil, wine and grain carried to the sea on pack donkeys, and Caesar and Livy grain brought to the army.^[2][4][3] Döderlein notes that in Caesar ⟨comportāre⟩ is the delivery by local authorities of what has been levied.^[6] From this it means “to collect, amass”, as Virgil's men who love to pile up fresh plunder.^[2][3]

Church Latin glosses it “bring together, collect, bring, lay up”.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of booty brought together.^[4][5][8]
• 116–27 BC – Varro of goods carried to the sea.^[4][8]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar of grain delivered to the army.^[3][8]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of amassing plunder.^[2][8]
• late 14th century – English comport comes from it, partly through Old French.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To carry together, transport, bring in.^[2][3][1][7]
2. To collect, amass.^[2][1][7]

Word family

• comportātiō

Related words

• portō
• English comport

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
7. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
9. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com