conscendo

Forms

cōnscendō (present infinitive cōnscendere, perfect active cōnscendī, supine cōnscēnsum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from con- and scandō (“to climb”), with the vowel weakened.^[2][3][1] De Vaan derives ⟨scandō⟩ from Proto-Italic *skand-e/o- (“to ascend”) and Proto-Indo-European *skend- (“to jump up, ascend”).^[4] Cognate with Old Irish sceinnid (“jumps”) and Sanskrit स्कन्दति (skándati, “leaps”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has nāvem cōnscendō, “I go aboard ship”, in the Mercator.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is to go on board a ship, and used alone to embark, as Cicero's “I embarked from that place to cross over”.^[2][5][1] It is to mount a horse or chariot, as Lucretius' chariot and a rider in the Bellum Hispaniense who mounted and fled.^[2][5][1] It is also to climb or scale anything high, as Catullus' steep mountains, and of things to spread upwards, as Lucilius' scab climbing up to the eyes.^[2]

It is to climb to a point, as Virgil's sun that had reached the middle of the sky, and to rise to a position or fame, as in an epitaph.^[2] Lewis and Short find it rare in prose before the Augustan period.^[5] Church Latin glosses it “ascend, mount, climb”.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of boarding a ship.^[2][7]
• c. 180–102 BC – Lucilius of a spreading scab.^[2][7]
• 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus of climbing mountains.^[2][7]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of the sun at midday.^[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To go on board (a ship); to embark.^[2][5][1]
2. To mount (a horse, a chariot).^[2][5][1][6]
3. To climb, ascend, scale; to climb to.^[2][5][1][6]
4. To rise to (a position, fame).^[2]

Word family

• cōnscēnsiō
• cōnscēnsus

Related words

• ascendō
• dēscendō
• scandō
• scālae

Usage notes

Döderlein distinguishes scandere, climbing a steep height with effort, using hands and feet, from ascendere, ēscendere, cōnscendere and īnscendere, which mean simply to mount.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ 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 f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c 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
8. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper