declamo
Pronunciation
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
- To make speeches as an exercise, practise speaking, declaim; to declaim a theme.[2][5][1]
- To speak with violence, bluster, bawl.[1][5]
Word family
- dēclāmātiō
- dēclāmātor
- dēclāmitō
Related words
- clāmō
- English declaim
References
- ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
- ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
- ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press