condisco

Forms

condiscō (present infinitive condiscere, perfect active condidicī); third conjugation, no passive, no supine stem^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin con- + discō (“to learn”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan traces discō to Proto-Italic *dikske/o- and a reduplicated present Proto-Indo-European *di-dḱ-sḱ-e/o- (“to take, accept”), meaning "to take in repeatedly".^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus uses it first, with an infinitive, as in the Curculio, where a woman has learned to drink her wine neat.^[2][5][3]

Semantic evolution

It means to learn thoroughly, most often with an infinitive: Plautus' drinker, Cicero's having learned to beg a little more carefully, Horace's learning to bear poverty.^[5] With an accusative Horace has learning measures of song, Ovid a fault learned from childhood, and Suetonius kinds of applause.^[5] Cicero also uses it with a relative clause, of learning what the profit of money was.^[5] Seneca uses it of learning about death at the very altars.^[2] Columella and Pliny the Elder use it of plants, as a vine shoot gradually learning to feed on its own roots.^[5] Apuleius has it with the dative, of people who learned with him at Athens.^[2][5] Stelten gives "learn with, learn thoroughly" for Church Latin.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of learning to drink wine neat.^[2][3]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of learning to beg.^[5]
• 65–8 BC – Horace of learning to bear poverty.^[5]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius of fellow students at Athens.^[2][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To learn thoroughly; to learn about.^[2][5][1]
2. (with dative) To learn together with (another).^[2][5][6]

Related words

• discō
• condiscipulus

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 h i j k Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson