deerro

Forms

deerrō (present infinitive deerrāre, perfect active deerrāvī, supine deerrātum); first conjugation^[1] In verse ⟨deer-⟩ is often scanned as one syllable.^[2][3] It is also written derrō.^[2][4]

Etymology

It is from Latin dē- + errō (“to wander, stray”).^[2][4][5] De Vaan reconstructs the simple verb as Proto-Italic *ers-āje-, a denominative verb made to a noun Proto-Indo-European *h₁ers-o/h₂- (“erring, error”), which may be built on a root meaning “to flow”.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and the OLD record it first in Plautus' Menaechmi, inter homines me deerrare a patre, of getting lost from one's father in a crowd.^[5][2][6]

Semantic evolution

Lewis & Short call it rare but classical.^[3] Cicero writes of people who had lost their way on a journey,^[3][7] and Virgil of a he-goat that had strayed, vir gregis ipse caper deerraverat.^[8] Figuratively it is to stray from a course of thought or action: Lucretius says some thinkers have strayed far from the truth,^[6] and the Rhetorica ad Herennium uses it of not straying from a subject.^[2] Seneca uses it of an archer who misses and of a man who goes wrong.^[2] In Medieval Latin it still meant to lose one's way and to be mistaken.^[9]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of getting lost in a crowd.^[2][5][10]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it of straying from the truth.^[6][10]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of losing one's way.^[3][10]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil writes of a he-goat that had strayed.^[8][10]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it of an archer missing the target.^[2][10]

Meanings

Verb

1. To wander off, go astray, lose one's way.^[2][3]
2. To miss (a target).^[2]
3. To stray from the right course (in thought or action), digress.^[2][6]
4. To make a mistake, go wrong.^[2][9]

Related words

• errō
• aberrō
• error

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
8. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
9. ^ a b Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
10. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de