crepitus

Forms

crepitus m (genitive crepitūs); fourth declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin crepō (“to rattle, creak”) + -tus, an action noun.^[2][1][3] De Vaan traces crepō to Proto-Italic *krepa- and Proto-Indo-European *ḱrep- (“to rattle, crackle”), an aorist root.^[4] He compares Hittite karp(ii̯e/a)-tta(ri) (“to be angry, rage”) and Sanskrit कृपते (kr̥pate, “to wean, mourn”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan, Köbler and the TLL date it from Naevius.^[4][5][3] Plautus has the creak of door hinges.^[6]

Semantic evolution

It is a short sharp sound or a run of them, creaking, cracking, clashing, the crackling of flames.^[2] Lewis & Short find it in good prose: Lucretius has the flapping of canvas, Varro the noise of bridles, Cicero the chattering of teeth.^[6] With ⟨digitōrum⟩ it is the snapping of fingers, as in Martial and Quintilian.^[2] It is also a fart: Plautus threatens to knock a barley-fed one out of each of them.^[2] Döderlein contrasts it, a single or repeated sharp sound, with fragor, a crash, and strepitus, a loud din.^[7] English took it as crepitus about 1820.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 235–200 BC – Naevius uses it.^[4][3][5]
• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of creaking hinges and of a fart.^[2][6][5]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius of flapping canvas.^[6][5]
• 40–102/103 AD – Martial of snapping fingers.^[2][5]
• c. 1820 – English borrows it.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A short sharp sound, a rattling, creaking, clashing; the crackling of flames.^[2][6][1]
2. crepitus digitōrum, a snapping of the fingers.^[2]
3. crepitus ventris, a fart, flatulence.^[2][1]
4. (Ecclesiastical Latin) An explosion.^[9]

Related words

• crepitāculum
• crepitō
• crepō
• crepundia
• English crepitus

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 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 c d 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 e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson