Etymologically
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corripio

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [kɔrˈrɪ.pi.oː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [korˈriː.pi.o][1]

Forms

corripiō (present infinitive corripere, perfect active corripuī, supine correptum); third (-iō variant) conjugation[1] It is also spelled conripiō.[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin con- + rapiō (“to seize”).[2][4][1] De Vaan derives the simple verb from Proto-Italic *rap-i- (“to seize”) and Proto-Indo-European *h₁rp-i-, cognate with Ancient Greek ἐρέπτομαι (eréptomai, “to devour, snatch away”) and Albanian rjep (“to tear off, rob”).[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus, Mercator: ut corripuit sē repente atque abiit!, “how suddenly he took himself off and went!”.[2][5]

Semantic evolution

The core sense is seizing quickly: snatching up (arma corripere, “to take up arms”), arresting a person (Cicero), catching fire, and hurrying over ground (Virgil's chariots “devour” the plain).[2] It is used of seizing money or a city unlawfully or by force, of floods and whirlwinds sweeping things away, of applause carrying a man away, and of diseases and passions attacking.[2][3] Horace uses it for rebuking someone, and Lucretius for limbs contracting in fear and for shortening (the “shortened daylight”); grammarians from Quintilian on use it of pronouncing a syllable short.[2][1]

In Church Latin “reproach, reprove” comes first among its senses, beside “seize, rob, plunder, usurp”.[6]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of hurrying off.[2][7]
  • 96–55 BC – Lucretius of shortening and of limbs contracting.[2][7]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of arresting a man.[2][7]
  • 65–8 BC – Horace of rebuking.[2][7]
  • c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian of pronouncing a syllable short.[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To seize, snatch up, grasp; to arrest.[2][1]
  2. (of fire) To catch.[2]
  3. To hurry over (ground); (reflexive) to rouse oneself, hurry off.[2][1]
  4. To seize unlawfully, appropriate, usurp; to take (a city) by force.[2][1][6]
  5. (of floods, storms) To sweep away; to carry away (emotionally).[2]
  6. (of diseases, passions) To attack, overcome.[2]
  7. To rebuke, censure, reproach.[2][1][6]
  8. To contract (the limbs) convulsively.[2]
  9. To shorten, abridge;[2][1] (grammar) to pronounce (a syllable) short.[2][1]

Word family

  • correptiō
  • correptor

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  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 e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de