consequentia

Forms

cōnsequentia f (genitive cōnsequentiae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin cōnsequēns (“following”) + -ia,^[2][1] the present participle of cōnsequor (“to follow”).^[1][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it from the Rhetorica ad Herennium and Cicero on;^[3] in Cicero's De divinatione it is the regular succession of events which observers noted over long periods.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

From an orderly succession or progression it came to mean a logical consequence, the necessary sequence of one thing on another; the Rhetorica ad Herennium uses per consequentiam of a figure in which a thing is suggested by what follows from it.^[2][4] The word is mostly post-classical and most frequent in the jurists,^[4] where per consequentias means “as a result” and ad consequentias “to analogous cases”: Paulus says that what was accepted against the reason of the law is not to be extended by analogy.^[2]

It went on in philosophy and theology, in Hrabanus Maurus and Albertus Magnus among others,^[5] and reached English in the late 14th century, through Old French, as consequence.^[6]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of the succession of events.^[2][3][5]
• c. 165 AD – Gellius speaks of the consequentia of nature.^[4][5]
• 1st half of the 3rd century AD – The jurist Paulus uses it for analogy.^[2][5]
• 13th century – Albertus Magnus uses it.^[5]
• late 14th century – Borrowed into English as consequence.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A succession or sequence of events.^[2][3]
2. A progression in order.^[2]
3. A logical consequence, necessary sequence;^[2][4] per consequentias, as a result, consequently.^[2][4]
4. An analogy.^[2][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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 d e 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 c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com