depasco

Forms

dēpāscō (present infinitive dēpāscere, perfect active dēpāvī, supine dēpāstum); third conjugation^[1] It is also used as a deponent, dēpāscor, dēpāscī, dēpāstus.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is from Latin dē- (“down, off”) + pāscō (“to feed, graze”).^[2][4][1] De Vaan traces pāscō to Proto-Italic *pā̆ske/o- and Proto-Indo-European *peh2-s- (“to protect, herd”).^[5] Cognate with Hittite pahš- (“to protect”) and Sanskrit पाति (pā́ti, “protects”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its earliest citation in the OLD is Cicero's On the Orator, of people who said that the public lands were being grazed bare by a man's flock: depasci agros publicos.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

Of animals it is to eat up or devour, as Columella's kids that ate up the dewy grass, and to graze down fields.^[2] Of the farmer it is to graze one's animals on something: Virgil praises the man who grazes down the rank growth of his crops while the blade is young.^[2][3] Cassiodorus explains the word from beasts that do not tear up grass by the roots but crop its tips.^[4] By extension it is to consume or waste, of fire or other agents, as the scorched rocks in Silius Italicus, and of men to lay a country waste.^[2] In Church Latin it is to feed upon or consume.^[7]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of public land grazed by a flock.^[2][6]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil, of grazing down young crops.^[2][3][6]
• 1st century AD – Columella, of kids eating dewy grass.^[2][6]
• 25–101 AD – Silius Italicus, of fire and of laying waste.^[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. Of animals: to eat up, devour; to graze down.^[2][3][1]
2. To graze or pasture (animals) on.^[2][1]
3. Of fire and other agents: to consume, waste; to lay waste.^[2][1][7]

Word family

• dēpastiō

Related words

• pāscō
• pāstor
• pābulum

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 j k l m Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson