conatus

Forms

cōnātus m (genitive cōnātūs); fourth declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from cōnor (“to try, attempt”) with the noun suffix -tus.^[2][3][1] De Vaan derives ⟨cōnor⟩ from Proto-Italic *kōnāje- (“to attempt”); a root ⟨*ḱōn-⟩ “ascent” is uncertain, and he compares Ancient Greek ἐγκονέω (enkonéō, “to be quick and active”) and Ancient Greek διάκονος (diákonos, “servant”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Terence is its first author,^[5][2] whose Heauton timorumenos has a man who “will speak great nonsense with great effort”.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

It is an effort or attempt, including physical effort, and an instinctive impulse: Cicero reports that the Stoics define love as “an impulse to form a friendship arising from the appearance of beauty”.^[2] It is also an attempted action or design, as Cicero's hidden plots revealed to the people, and an attempted blow.^[2][6]

Church Latin glosses it “attempt”.^[7] In medieval Latin cōnātus also stands for cognātus, “kinsman”.^[8]

Timeline

• 190–159 BC – Terence of great effort.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of an impulse and of plots.^[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. An effort, exertion, attempt; physical effort.^[2][6][1]
2. An instinctive impulse.^[2]
3. An attempted action, design; an attempted blow.^[2]

Related words

• cōnor
• cōnāmen
• English conation

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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. ^ 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill