Etymologically
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defleo

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈdeː.fɫe.oː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈdɛː.fle.o][1]

Forms

dēfleō (present infinitive dēflēre, perfect active dēflēvī, supine dēflētum); second conjugation[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin dē- + fleō (“to weep”).[2][3] De Vaan traces ⟨fleō⟩ to Proto-Italic *flē- and Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₁- (“to bleat, cry”), cognate with Latvian blêt (“to bleat”) and Old English blætan (“to bleat”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL records it from Plautus, Lucretius and Cicero on;[3] in Plautus' Captivi someone asks “should I not weep for such a young man?”[2]

Semantic evolution

It is to weep for the dead, and to mourn the loss of a thing: in Plautus a parasite laments the dinners he has seen die.[2] Lucretius has mourners who wept over the burned body.[5] It is also to lament an event, as Cicero's departure which his friend had often bewailed, and to lament in writing, as Seneca of a historian who mourned the civil wars.[2] Rarely, without an object, it is to weep bitterly.[2][1]

Church Latin glosses it “weep over, bewail, lament”.[6]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of mourning a young man.[2][7]
  • 96–55 BC – Lucretius of mourning the dead.[5][7]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of lamenting a departure.[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To weep for, bewail; to mourn the loss of.[2][5][1][6]
  2. To lament, deplore; to lament in writing.[2][1]
  3. To weep bitterly.[2][1]

Word family

  • defletio
  • indēflētus
  • affleō
  • diffleō
  • effleō
  • fleō

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 h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de