Etymologically
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contego

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈkɔn.tɛ.ɡoː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈkɔn.te.ɡo][1]

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]

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