Etymologically
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confodio

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [kõːˈfɔ.di.oː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [koɱˈfɔː.di.o][1]

Forms

cōnfodiō (present infinitive cōnfodere, perfect active cōnfōdī, supine cōnfossum); third (-iō variant) conjugation[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin con- + fodiō (“to dig”).[2][1][3] De Vaan traces fodiō to Proto-Italic *foþ-i- and Proto-Indo-European *bʰodʰ-i- (“to poke, dig”).[4] Cognate with Hittite padda-i (“to dig”), Lithuanian bèsti (“to stick, dig”) and Latvian best (“to dig, bury”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first example in the OLD is in Plautus, where a man says he ordered his garden to be dug.[2][5]

Semantic evolution

Its first sense is agricultural, to dig up or turn over land, to dig round a tree, to trench, as in Cato and Varro.[2][5] From this it means to stab fatally or run through, as in Sallust's plan to stab a man unprepared in his own house.[2] Livy uses it figuratively of men pierced and condemned in advance by so many verdicts.[2] The TLL notes that Cicero does not use it.[3] Church Latin glosses it “stab, pierce”.[6]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of digging a garden.[2][3][7]
  • 234–149 BC – Cato the Elder of digging soil finely.[5][7]
  • 86–34 BC – Sallust of stabbing a man.[2][7]
  • 59 BC–17 AD – Livy figuratively, of men pierced by verdicts.[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To dig up, turn over land; to dig round; to trench.[2][5][1]
  2. To stab, run through, pierce.[2][5][1][6]
  3. (figurative) To harm, damage.[2][1]

Word family

  • cōnfossus

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. ^ a b 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 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
  7. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de