Etymologically
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demoror

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈdeː.mɔ.rɔr][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈdɛː.mo.ror][1]

Forms

dēmoror (present infinitive dēmorārī, perfect active dēmorātus sum); first conjugation, deponent[1] Glossaries also have an active dēmorō.[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin dē- + moror (“to delay”).[3][1][2][4] moror belongs to mora (“delay”), either as a verb made from that noun or as an old iterative;[5] de Vaan traces mora to Proto-Italic *morH-ā- (“delay”) and Proto-Indo-European *morh₂-.[5] Cognate with Old Irish maraid (“lasts, remains”).[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL finds it from Plautus on;[2] in the Epidicus someone says “but I talk too long; you have long been kept waiting”, diu me estis demorati.[3]

Semantic evolution

Transitively it is to cause delay to someone, to keep waiting or detain, and to hold up an activity, as in Caesar's march that no enemy hindered or held up.[3] Intransitively it is to linger, stay or delay: in Plautus' Rudens a woman asks what she will tell the priestess for having stayed so long.[3][6] Tacitus has a man rise without delay, nihil dēmorātus.[6] The TLL counts only a handful of uses in each author, three at most, in Caesar, Virgil, Statius, Gellius and Apuleius.[2] The Digest and the Vulgate use it of staying somewhere for a time;[6] in Church Latin it is to dwell, abide, linger or delay.[7] English demur (about 1200, “to linger, tarry”) comes from it through Old French demorer.[4]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, of keeping someone waiting and of lingering.[3][2][8]
  • c. 50 BC – Caesar, of holding up a march.[3][8]
  • 98–115 AD – Tacitus, nihil dēmorātus.[6][8]
  • 390–406 AD – The Vulgate, of staying seven days.[6][8]
  • c. 1200 – Borrowed into English as demur, through Old French.[4]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To delay, keep waiting, detain;[3][1] to hold up an activity.[3][7]
  2. To linger, stay, tarry;[3][6][1] to dwell, abide.[7]

Word family

  • demoratio

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ 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
  6. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  8. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de