Etymologically
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delitesco

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [deː.lɪˈteːs.koː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [de.liˈtɛs.ko][1]

Forms

dēlitēscō (present infinitive dēlitēscere, perfect active dēlituī); third conjugation, no passive, no supine stem[1] Manuscripts have both -ēscō and -īscō, and also dil-.[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin dē- + latēscō (“to hide”), the inchoative of lateō (“to lie hidden”).[1][3][2] De Vaan lists it under lateō, a stative verb from Proto-Indo-European *lh₂-to- (“hidden”), and compares Ancient Greek λανθάνω (lanthánō, “to be hidden”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and the TLL date it from Plautus,[4][2] in whose Rudens a bad woman has gone into hiding.[2]

Semantic evolution

After Plautus the TLL finds it from Varro and Cicero on.[2] It is to hide oneself, lie hidden or lurk: Cicero has beasts hiding in their lairs, Caesar the enemy hidden at night in the woods, Ovid Salmacis hidden in a thicket.[3][2] Lewis & Short call it classical.[3] Wiktionary adds to withdraw and to take refuge.[1] Church Latin glosses it to lie hidden.[5]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a woman in hiding.[2][4][6]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of beasts in their lairs.[3][6]
  • c. 50 BC – Caesar of an enemy hidden in the woods.[3][6]
  • 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid of Salmacis in a thicket.[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To hide oneself, go into hiding; to lie hidden, lurk.[3][1][5][2]
  2. To withdraw, take refuge.[1]

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 Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  3. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c 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 Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de