derelinquo

Forms

dērelinquō (present infinitive dērelinquere, perfect active dērelīquī, supine dērelictum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin dē- + relinquō (“to leave behind”).^[2][1][3] That verb is a compound of re- and linquō (“to leave”), whose forms de Vaan regards as inherited, from a present Proto-Indo-European *li-n-kʷ- (“to leave”).^[4]

Cognate with Old Irish léicid (“to let go, leave”), Sanskrit रिणक्ति (riṇákti, “leaves”) and Ancient Greek λείπω (leípō, “to leave”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Varro,^[4] but the TLL and Lewis & Short cite it already in Plautus' Truculentus, where a speaker complains of being treated quasi pro derelicta, as if abandoned.^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Latin it means to abandon wholly:^[5] Catullus has a mind left lying in deep mud, and Cicero saw Tiberius Gracchus deserted by Quintus Tubero and his friends.^[2] Cicero also uses it of farmers abandoning their land and of sowing in uncultivated and abandoned ground,^[5][6] and Caesar of ships left stranded by the tide.^[5] In law prō dērelictō habēre is to treat a possession as abandoned, and jurists use the verb for giving up a claim.^[6][2] It could also mean to leave behind at death: Sallust has a son whom his father had left a private person,^[2][6] and in Late Latin it is to bequeath, as Arnobius has books left behind and Jerome a large debt.^[5]

Christian writers use it often for forsaking God or being forsaken by him: the Vulgate has it with Dominum as object, and the TLL records it in the Old Latin Bible, Tertullian and the Vulgate.^[5][3] Ecclesiastical dictionaries give it as abandon, forsake, desert.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus has quasi pro derelicta, “as if abandoned”.^[3][8]
• 116–27 BC – Varro uses it of abandoned land or buildings.^[2][4][8]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of deserted friends and abandoned farmland.^[2][5][8]
• 86–34 BC – Sallust uses it of a son left behind at a father's death.^[2][8]
• 297–310 AD – Arnobius uses it of books bequeathed.^[5][8]
• 390–406 AD – The Vulgate uses it of forsaking the Lord.^[5][8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To abandon wholly, leave behind, neglect, discard.^[2][5]
2. To desert (a person); (Ecclesiastical Latin) to forsake.^[2][5][7]
3. To abandon (land or buildings), leave derelict; to give up (an action).^[2]
4. To leave behind at death;^[2][5][1] (Late Latin) to bequeath.^[2][5][1]
5. (law) To give up a claim to or possession of;^[2][6] prō dērelictō habēre, to treat as abandoned.^[2][6]

Word family

• dērelictiō
• dērelictus

Related words

• relinquō
• linquō
• dēlinquō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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 d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d 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 k l m Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de