Etymologically
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condo

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Pronunciation

  • IPA (Classical): [ˈkɔn.doː][1]
  • IPA (Ecclesiastical): [ˈkɔn.do][1]

Forms

condō (present infinitive condere, perfect active condidī, supine conditum); third conjugation[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin com- + -do (“to put”), like abdō.[2][1][3] The element -dō is Proto-Italic *-þō, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to put, place”).[4][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus onwards,[5] as in “I'll put the bag in the chest” and “is the gold as I stored it?”.[2]

Semantic evolution

It meant to put into something, to store up for later use, as Cato's snake skin to be picked up and stored, to put back in its place, to bury the dead, as Ennius' cruel tomb, and to hide or conceal.[2] It meant to put out of sight, to contain within, and with diem to see a day out.[2]

From putting together it meant to found a city or state, so that ab urbe condita meant “from the founding of the city” in 753 BC, to institute a custom or law, to construct, and to compose a poem or history, as Cicero's Greek poem.[2][6] Lustrum condere was to perform the purification that closed the census.[2] English abscond comes from its compound abscondere.[7]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of storing gold.[2][5]
  • 204–169 BC – Ennius uses it of burial.[2][5]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of founding a city and composing a poem.[6][2][5]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To put in, insert.[2][1]
  2. To store up, put away.[2][1]
  3. To put back in place.[2]
  4. To bury.[2][1]
  5. To hide, conceal.[2][1]
  6. To shelter, (reflexive) to take refuge.[2]
  7. To hide from view.[2]
  8. To contain.[2]
  9. To found (a city), ab urbe condita: from the founding of Rome.[2][1]
  10. To establish, institute.[2][1]
  11. To construct, put together.[2][1]
  12. lustrum condere: to close the census with a purification.[2]
  13. To compose (a poem).[2]
  14. (figurative) To plunge (a sword).[1]

Word family

  • conditiō
  • conditor
  • conditus
  • conditīvus
  • conditrix
  • condus
  • dēcondō
  • excondo
  • inconditus
  • recondō
  • abscondō
  • condiō

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  6. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
  7. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com