conquasso

Forms

conquassō (present infinitive conquassāre, perfect active conquassāvī, supine conquassātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin con- + quassō (“to shake repeatedly”).^[2][3][1] quassō is formed from quatiō (“to shake”),^[4] for which de Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *kwat-i-; he compares Old High German scutten (“to shake”) and allows that it may be of non-Indo-European origin.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan records it from Cato on,^[4] who uses it in his farming manual of breaking a vessel: sīve calix erit, conquassātō, “or if it is a pot, smash it”.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

Lewis and Short find it several times in Lucretius and Cicero, very rarely elsewhere, and after Cicero only in Late Latin.^[5] Lucretius uses it of a body shattered by some blow and of mind and soul shaken, Cicero of Apulia shaken by great earthquakes.^[2][5] Cicero also uses it politically, of foreign nations unsettled by the madness of a year and of a shaken state, and Sulpicius writes in a letter to Cicero that all the provinces have been shaken.^[2][5]

Apuleius uses it of a head struck violently.^[2] Augustine distinguishes it from conterō: to be shaken is less than to be crushed.^[3] In Ecclesiastical Latin it means to crush or shake.^[6]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato uses it of smashing a pot.^[2][7]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it of a shattered body and a shaken mind.^[2][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of earthquakes and political upheaval.^[2][7]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius uses it of a violent blow.^[2][7]
• 354–430 AD – Augustine contrasts it with conterī.^[3][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To shake violently.^[2][5]
2. To shatter, dash to pieces.^[2][5]
3. (figurative) To throw into confusion, unsettle, disturb.^[2][5]

Word family

• conquassātiō

Related words

• quassō
• quatiō

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 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 c 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de