declamo

Forms

dēclāmō (present infinitive dēclāmāre, perfect active dēclāmāvī, supine dēclāmātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin dē- + clāmō (“to shout”);^[2][1][3] Etymonline takes ⟨dē-⟩ as perhaps intensive and traces the verb to Proto-Indo-European *kele- (“to shout”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it from Cicero on,^[3] who in the speech for Roscius says an opponent seemed to declaim something taken from another speech.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is a rhetorical term, to make speeches as an oratorical exercise, to practise speaking, to declaim, most frequent in Cicero and Quintilian.^[2][5] With an accusative it is to declaim a theme, as Petronius asks what contrōversia someone declaimed today.^[2] It is also to speak violently like an orator, to bluster or bawl.^[1][5] The TLL finds it once each in Horace, Seneca, Juvenal, Tacitus and Fronto, twice in Ovid and Pliny's letters, three times in Petronius, Martial and Gellius.^[3] English declaim (late 14th century) came through Old French and directly from Latin.^[4]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero.^[2][3]
• before 66 AD – Petronius of declaiming a controversia.^[2]
• c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian.^[5]
• late 14th century – English declaim.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make speeches as an exercise, practise speaking, declaim; to declaim a theme.^[2][5][1]
2. To speak with violence, bluster, bawl.^[1][5]

Word family

• dēclāmātiō
• dēclāmātor
• dēclāmitō

Related words

• clāmō
• English declaim

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press