Etymologically
Log in

conductio

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 23 October 2026 at 11:37. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Forms

conductiō f (genitive conductiōnis); third declension[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin condūcō (“to bring together; to hire”) + -tiō.[2][1] The verb is made from con- and dūcō (“to lead”).[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero is its first author, both for the taking of a lease and for the bringing together of the premisses of an argument.[2][4][5]

Semantic evolution

The common Classical sense is a hiring or lease: Livy uses it of farming the public revenues,[6][2] and in Roman law locātiō et conductiō, letting and hiring, was one contract, which Gaius calls proxima ēmptiōnī et venditiōnī “very close to buying and selling”.[2][4] In rhetoric Cicero and Marius Victorinus use it of drawing the parts of an argument together, a recapitulation.[2][4][6]

Caelius Aurelianus made it a medical word for a spasm or convulsion, the Greek spasmos, from the drawing together of the muscles or sinews.[4][6] Medieval Latin used it of renting, contracts, the hiring of a hired man and the raising of troops.[5] English conduction meant “a leading” when it was borrowed in the 1540s, from French and Latin.[3]

Timeline

  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of a lease and of an argument's premisses.[2][4][5]
  • 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses it of the farming of public revenues.[6][2][5]
  • 140–180 AD – Gaius treats locātiō et conductiō as a contract.[4][5]
  • 5th century AD – Caelius Aurelianus uses it of a spasm.[4][6][5]
  • 1540s – English borrows conduction.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (law) The taking of a lease, hiring, renting.[2][6]
  2. (rhetoric) A bringing together of the premisses of an argument; a recapitulation.[2][4]
  3. (medicine) A spasm, convulsion.[6][4][1]
  4. (Medieval Latin) A contract; the hiring of workers or soldiers.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press