crispo

Forms

crispō (present infinitive crispāre, perfect active crispāvī, supine crispātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin crispus (“curly, curled”) + -ō, a verb made from the adjective.^[2][1][3] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *krispo- (“curly, crumpled, twisted”) for the adjective; since it can be connected with crīnis and crista, he thinks the cluster was originally ⟨-sp-⟩, not the ⟨-ps-⟩ that others assume from cognates such as Welsh crych and Breton crec'h (“curly, wrinkled”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's first dated example is in Virgil's Aeneid, of brandishing two spears with broad iron heads: bīna manū lātō crispāns hastīlia ferrō.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

Its literal sense is to curl or crimp hair: Pliny the Elder records that the ash of camel dung was used to curl it.^[2][6] Valerius Flaccus has the dawn rippling the sea, and Statius uses it of chased gold.^[2][5] Maecenas, quoted by Seneca, uses it intransitively of puckering, and it was also said of wood with a wavy grain;^[2] Pliny uses it of the quivering crackle of buildings in an earthquake.^[2] Lewis and Short call it poetic or post-Augustan, and give the further sense of making a surface rough or variegated, or strewing it with plants.^[6]

In the 5th century Sedulius has crispāre cachinnum, to give a little laugh.^[5]

Timeline

• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of brandishing two spears.^[2][7]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of curling hair.^[2][7]
• c. 45–96 AD – Statius uses it of chasing gold.^[5][7]
• first half of the 5th century AD – Sedulius uses it of a little laugh.^[5][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To curl, crimp (hair).^[2][6]
2. To make ripples in a surface.^[2]
3. To shake, brandish (weapons).^[2][6]
4. (intransitive) To become puckered; of wood, to have a wavy grain.^[2]
5. (intransitive) To quiver, tremble.^[2]
6. (figurative) To make rough or variegated; to strew or plant with something.^[6][1]

Word family

• concrispō
• crispāns
• crispicō
• incrispō

Related words

• crispicapillus
• crispitūdō
• crispulus
• crispus

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ 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 e 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de