congemo

Forms

congemō (present infinitive congemere, perfect active congemuī); third conjugation, no supine stem^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin con- (“together, thoroughly”) + gemō (“to groan”).^[2][3][1] The origin of gemō is uncertain.^[4] Most scholars connected it with Ancient Greek γέμω (gémō, “to be full”), but de Vaan finds the change of meaning hard to imagine; he cites Vine, who reconstructs a root Proto-Indo-European *Gen(H)- (“to call”) and compares γέγωνα (gégōna, “to shout so as to be heard”) and Tocharian A ken- (“to call”), with Latin /m/ for /n/ on the model of fremō (“to roar”) and tremō (“to tremble”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest examples are in Cicero, where the full senate groans aloud, and Lucretius, who asks why one groans and weeps over death.^[2][3][5]

Semantic evolution

Intransitively it means to groan or utter a cry of grief or pain.^[2][6] Besides Cicero's senate, Suetonius has Tiberius groan as if unequal to his grief, Statius men crushed under one mass, and Petronius a groan with wringing of hands.^[2][3] Virgil uses it of an ash tree that gives a last groan as it falls, and an ancient gloss renders that use as crepuit, “creaked”.^[3][5] Lewis and Short call it rare but classical.^[5]

Transitively it means to bewail or lament:^[2][6] Lucretius uses it of death, Valerius Flaccus of the dead Idmon on the bier, and Apuleius of a whole city lamenting the sad fate of a royal house.^[2][7] It continued in Christian and late writers: the Vulgate uses it in Jeremiah of groaning in pain, Jerome uses it in his letters, and Gregory of Tours writes of a city that did not groan under any burden of tribute.^[3][6]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of the senate groaning aloud.^[2][8]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it transitively, of bewailing death.^[2][8]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of a falling ash tree.^[2][8]
• c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius uses it of Tiberius' grief.^[2][8]
• 538/539–594 AD – Gregory of Tours uses it of a city burdened by tribute.^[3][8]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To utter a cry of grief or pain, groan deeply;^[2][6] (of things) to make a moaning noise.^[2][6]
2. (transitive) To bewail, lament for.^[2][5]

Related words

• gemō
• gemitus
• ingemō

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de