contego

Forms

contegō (present infinitive contegere, perfect active contēxī, supine contēctum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin con- + tegō (“to cover”).^[2][1][3] The verb tegō goes back to Proto-Italic *tegō and Proto-Indo-European *(s)teg- (“to cover”).^[4] Cognate with Ancient Greek στέγω (stégō, “to keep off, keep in”), Lithuanian stógas (“roof”) and Old Irish teg (“house”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Thesaurus finds it from Terence and Accius on;^[3] Terence's Hecyra has “you will have covered up the wrong unjustly done to her”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is to cover over, usually to hide or protect, as Cicero's parts of the body that nature has covered and hidden, and to put a roof over, as Caesar's shelter covered with bricks and mud.^[2][5] It is used of burial, of strewing thickly, as Accius' fields covered with death, and of hiding a person or a fact, as Cicero's man who hid himself in a reaping basket.^[2]

Church Latin glosses it “cover, envelop”.^[6]

Timeline

• 190–159 BC – Terence of covering up a wrong.^[2][3][7]
• 170–c. 90 BC – Accius of fields covered with death.^[2][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of covering, burying and hiding.^[2][7]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar of roofing over.^[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To cover over; to protect, clothe; to roof over.^[2][5][1]
2. To bury, entomb.^[2][1]
3. To conceal, hide.^[2][1]

Related words

• tegō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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 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 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de