depello

Forms

dēpellō (present infinitive dēpellere, perfect active dēpulī, supine dēpulsum); third conjugation^[1] The Rhetorica ad Herennium has an archaic participle dēpultus.^[2]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin dē- (“away, down”) + pellō (“to push, drive”).^[2][1] De Vaan traces pellō to Proto-Italic *pelna- and Proto-Indo-European *pl-n(e)-h₂- (“to approach”), cognate with Ancient Greek πίλναμαι (pílnamai, “to approach”) and Umbrian ampentu in an Umbrian sacrificial formula; the meaning shifted from “bring near” to “push, drive”.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Cato.^[3] Varro uses it of weaning piglets, when they are dēpulsī ā mammā.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is to drive off or away, especially enemy forces, and to push something aside: Cicero says a runner may not trip or push away his rival, and that clothing was invented to keep out the cold.^[2] In medicine it is to drive something out of the body.^[2] It also means driving animals to a place, thrusting down what stands upright (Cicero's statues of the gods thrown down), and expelling people from their homes or posts.^[2] Figuratively it is to avert a danger, deter or dissuade.^[1][4]

Church Latin glosses it “drive away, dispel, keep from”.^[5]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato.^[3][6]
• 116–27 BC – Varro of weaning piglets.^[2][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of warding off cold and of statues thrown down.^[2][6]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus of dismissing a wife.^[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To drive off, repel (especially enemy forces); to dislodge.^[2][1]
2. To push away; to wean.^[2][1]
3. To ward off, avert, dispel.^[2][1][5]
4. To thrust down.^[2][1]
5. To expel, turn out; to dismiss.^[2][1]
6. To deter, dissuade.^[1]

Word family

• dēpulsiō
• dēpulsor
• dēpulsō
• dēpulsōrius
• dēpulsus

Related words

• appellō
• aspellō
• compellō
• dispellō
• expellō
• impellō
• interpellō
• pellō
• perpellō
• prōpellō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ 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
4. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
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