demissio

Forms

dēmissiō f (genitive dēmissiōnis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin dēmittō + -tiō, from the verb meaning “to let down, lower”.^[2][1][3] The verb is dē- with mittō (“to release, let go; send”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Indo-European *m(e)ith₂- (“to exchange, remove”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest record is in Caesar's Civil War, of the lowering of screens (demissio storiarum).^[5][6][7]

Semantic evolution

The noun stayed rare.^[5] Besides the concrete lowering it was used for something hanging or let grow downwards: Vitruvius has it of the lowering of the bronze disc that regulates the heat of a sweating room, and Macrobius of a beard let grow long.^[5][7][8]

Cicero used it figuratively in demissio animi, a sinking of the spirits or dejection, joined with fear and brokenness of mind.^[2][5] In Ecclesiastical Latin it came to mean lowliness or humility.^[9]

Timeline

• c. 50 BC – Caesar writes of the lowering of screens.^[5][6][10]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses demissio animi for dejection.^[2][5][10]
• c. 84–c. 25 BC – Vitruvius uses the plural of the lowering of a disc in a bath.^[5][7][10]
• first half of the 5th century AD – Macrobius uses it of a beard grown long.^[5][8][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A letting down, lowering; an extension downwards.^[2][5]
2. A sinking of the spirits, dejection.^[2][5]
3. (Ecclesiastical Latin) Lowliness, humility.^[9]

Related words

• dēmittō
• dēmissus
• mittō

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
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 g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ a b c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
9. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
10. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de