demeto

Forms

dēmetō (present infinitive dēmetere, perfect active dēmessuī, supine dēmessum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin dē- + metō (“to reap”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan derives metō from Proto-Italic *met-e- (“to reap”), cognate with Welsh medi (“to mow, harvest”); the further origin is disputed, and he finds a shift from Proto-Indo-European *met- (“to measure”) to “reap” conceivable.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and the TLL date it from Cato,^[4][3] who writes ubi hordeum demessuit, “when he has reaped the barley”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Its main sense is to reap or mow crops, as in Caesar, Cicero, Livy and Tacitus.^[2][5] It was also used of picking fruit, flowers and vegetables, as Virgil's flower plucked by a thumb, of taking honey and of shearing fleece or plumage; the TLL notes that Columella and Pliny the Elder use it most often.^[2][3] Poets used it of cutting off a part of the body, as Horace does, and of cutting down men in battle, as Valerius Flaccus and Silius do.^[2] The Vulgate has it of the earth being reaped.^[5]

In Ecclesiastical Latin it keeps the senses “mow, harvest, reap, gather”.^[6]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato uses it of reaping barley.^[2][7]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar uses it of reaped grain.^[2][7]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of a plucked flower.^[2][7]
• 65–8 BC – Horace uses it of cutting off a part of the body.^[2][7]
• 1st century AD – Columella uses it of taking honey and of plucking geese.^[2][7]
• 25–101 AD – Silius uses it of cutting down men in battle.^[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To mow, reap (crops, fields).^[2][5]
2. To pick, gather (fruit, flowers, vegetables); to take (honey); to shear.^[2]
3. To cut off (a part of the body); to cut down (in battle).^[2][5]

Usage notes

The OLD lists a separate dēmētō only as a cross-reference to dīmētor “to measure out”.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de