crepo

Forms

crepō (present infinitive crepāre, perfect active crepuī); first conjugation, no passive, no supine stem^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *krepa-, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱrep- (“to rattle, crackle”).^[2] The OLD calls it onomatopoeic.^[3] Cognate with Hittite karpi- (“anger”) and Sanskrit कृपते (kṛ́pate, “groans”).^[2][3] De Vaan suggests the vowel of the present may come from the perfect ⟨crepuī⟩, and that Varro's ⟨percrepis⟩ may be a remnant of a third-conjugation verb.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus,^[2] whose miser in the Aulularia asks “what rattled like iron just now?”^[3]

Semantic evolution

It is to make a sharp noise, to rattle, clatter, creak or crackle: of doors opening in Plautus and Terence, of burning herbs in Propertius, and in Cato and Martial of breaking wind.^[3] Seneca uses it of a house that collapsed with a crash.^[3] Transitively it is to make something rattle;^[3] Horace and later writers use it of rattling out words, of talking on and on about something.^[3] Lewis & Short note that it is mostly poetic or post-Augustan, classical prose preferring concrepō.^[4]

Church Latin glosses it “crack, burst asunder, resound”.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of rattling iron and creaking doors.^[3][2][6]
• 234–149 BC – Cato of breaking wind.^[3][6]
• 65–8 BC – Horace of harping on a subject.^[3][6]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca of a house that collapsed.^[3][6]
• mid-14th century – English crevice comes through Old French from a Vulgar Latin derivative.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To rattle, clatter, creak, crackle; to break wind.^[3][4][1]
2. To break with a crack.^[3]
3. To make something rattle.^[3]
4. To rattle out, keep talking about; to boast of.^[3][4][1]

Word family

• concrepō
• crepātūra
• crepax
• crepitō
• crepitulum
• crepitus
• crepulus
• dēcrepitus
• discrepō
• percrepō
• praecrepo
• recrepō

Related words

• English crevice

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com