contrucido

Forms

contrucīdō (present infinitive contrucīdāre, perfect active contrucīdāvī, supine contrucīdātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin con- + trucīdō (“to slaughter”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan lists trucīdō among the derivatives of trux (“savage”); it has been explained as a shortened ⟨*truki-kīdāre⟩ or as “hacking in four pieces”, but he derives it from ⟨*truk(o)-kaid-o-⟩, “hacking savagely”, with the root of caedō (“to cut”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Cicero's Pro Sestio, literally of a body weakened and hacked by many wounds, dēbilitātō corpore et contrucīdātō, and figuratively of men who have butchered the whole state, tōtam rem pūblicam contrucīdāvērunt.^[3][5][6]

Semantic evolution

Lewis and Short call it rare, but used in good prose.^[7] Seneca uses it of the people slaughtered by soldiers sent among them, plēbem immissō mīlite contrucīdātam, and of the fat bodies of bulls;^[8][7][6] Suetonius of exiles killed all together and of wild beasts.^[8][7][6] Apuleius has it of stabbing one's own throat with many blows.^[8]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of a body hacked by wounds and, figuratively, of the state.^[3][5]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it of the people slaughtered by soldiers.^[7][8]
• c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius uses it of exiles killed together.^[8][6]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius uses it of stabbing oneself with many blows.^[8][9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To inflict many wounds upon, hack about.^[2][5]
2. (figurative) To ruin, wreck (the state).^[6][5]
3. To kill in large numbers, slaughter, butcher.^[2][8]

Related words

• trucīdō
• trux
• caedō

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. ^ 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 Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d e Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
7. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
9. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de