criminator

Forms

crīminātor m (genitive crīminātōris, feminine crīminātrīx); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin crīminor (“to accuse”) + -tor.^[2][3] De Vaan files the verb and crīmen (“indictment, accusation”) under cernō (“to sift, separate”), which goes back to Proto-Indo-European *krei- (“to sift, separate”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has meus criminator (“my accuser”) in the Bacchides.^[5][6][4]

Semantic evolution

Lewis and Short call it very rare.^[5] Tacitus uses it of a man who hid his own faults and accused others.^[5][6] Lactantius applies it to the Devil,^[5] and the glossaries render it diabolus.^[3] In Ecclesiastical Latin it meant a slanderer, false witness, false accuser or detractor, with the feminine criminatrix.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it in the Bacchides.^[5][4][8]
• AD 98–115 – Tacitus uses it of one who accuses others.^[5][8]
• c. 250–317 AD – Lactantius uses it of the Devil.^[5][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. An accuser.^[2][5]
2. A slanderer, calumniator, detractor.^[2][5][7]
3. (Ecclesiastical Latin) The Devil.^[5][3]

References

1. ^ a b c 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. ^ a b c 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 f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de