delator

Forms

dēlātor m (genitive dēlātōris, feminine dēlātrīx); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin dēferō (“to bring down, report, denounce”) + -tor, formed on the participle ⟨dēlātus⟩.^[2][3][1] The verb is dē- with ferō (“to carry”), whose participle stem comes from another root; de Vaan traces ferō to Proto-Italic *fere/o- and Proto-Indo-European *bʰer-e/o- (“to carry”).^[4] Isidore explained the word as one who uncovers what was hidden.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Livy.^[5] The OLD's earliest examples include an inscribed edict concerning the Anauni, where an informer is said to have shown that some of them belonged to Trent.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Lewis & Short note that it is post-Augustan and especially frequent in Tacitus and Suetonius.^[6] It is first an informant, and then a denouncer, accuser or informer, also of high treason: Martial celebrates the informer exiled from Rome, and Pliny the Younger's Panegyric calls for informers to be judged like brigands.^[2][6] With a genitive it is the accuser of a crime, as Seneca's informer who is himself guilty of the crime he reports.^[2] Tertullian and Lactantius call the devil the accuser.^[3] Church Latin also gives it the sense bearer or cross-bearer.^[7]

Timeline

• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses it.^[5]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca of an informer guilty himself.^[2][5]
• 40–102/103 AD – Martial of informers exiled.^[2][5]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus uses it often.^[6][5]
• c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian calls the devil the accuser.^[3][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. An informant; a carrier of information.^[2]
2. A denouncer, accuser, informer.^[2][6][1]
3. (Ecclesiastical Latin) A bearer; a cross-bearer.^[7]

Word family

• dēlātōrius

Related words

• dēferō
• dēlātiō

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. ^ 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 f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson