conscribo

Forms

cōnscrībō (present infinitive cōnscrībere, perfect active cōnscrīpsī, supine cōnscrīptum); third conjugation^[1] Festus has cōnscrībsisse, Cato cōnscrībtus, and a law inscription conscreiptus.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin con- + scrībō (“to write”), “to write together” in a list.^[2][4][3][1] De Vaan derives scrībō from Proto-Italic *skreif- (“to carve”), from Proto-Indo-European *skreybʰ- (“to carve”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus,^[5] in whose Miles gloriosus the soldier asks someone ut sibi latrōnēs cōgerem et cōnscrīberem, “to gather and enlist mercenaries for him”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Cōnscrībere is “to enrol, enlist”, very often as a military term for levying troops.^[2][4][1] It is also “to cover with writing” (tablets), “to write down”, and “to compose, draw up” a law, a contract or a book.^[2][4][1]

Church Latin glosses it “enroll, elect, transcribe, commit to writing, inscribe”.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus: ut sibi latrōnēs cōgerem et cōnscrīberem;^[2][7] tacitus cōnscrīpsit tabellās, “he silently wrote the tablets”.^[2][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero speaks of a book written about his consulship.^[2][7]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy: tabellās cōnscrīptās, “written tablets”.^[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To enrol, enlist, levy (troops).^[2][4][1][6]
2. To cover with writing.^[2]
3. To write down, record.^[2][6]
4. To compose, draw up, write.^[2][4][1]

Word family

• cōnscrībillō
• cōnscrīptiō
• cōnscrīptor
• conscriptum
• cōnscrīptus
• inconscriptus

Related words

• scrībō
• dēlectus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ 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
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