descisco

Forms

dēscīscō (present infinitive dēscīscere, perfect active dēscīvī or dēsciī, supine dēscītum); third conjugation, no passive^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from dē- (“away from”) and scīscō (“to get to know, decree”).^[2][3] Lewis and Short take it to be first a political term, to break away by formal decision.^[4] De Vaan derives ⟨scīscō⟩ from sciō (“to know”), which he traces to Proto-Italic *skije/o- and Proto-Indo-European *skh₁-i- (“to incise”), “to know” having come from “to distinguish, decide”.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's earliest quotation is Cicero, of champions of the state who desert it if they are fickle.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is to defect from an allegiance, revolt or desert, as Caesar's distant states that fall away from Afranius; with ad it is to go over to someone, as Livy's Praeneste that went over from the Latins to the Romans.^[2][4] It is also to abandon a principle or model, as Cicero's “I have not been untrue to myself”, and to fall away from a quality or state, as the elder Seneca's Scipio falling short of his ancestors.^[2][1] Columella uses it of a vine that degenerates.^[2]

Church Latin glosses it “withdraw, sever”.^[6]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero of fickle champions and of being true to oneself.^[2][7]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar of states falling away.^[4][7]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of a city going over to Rome.^[4][7]
• 1st century AD – Columella of a degenerating vine.^[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To defect, revolt, desert; with ad, to go over to.^[2][4][1]
2. To abandon a principle; to be unfaithful to.^[2][1][6]
3. To fall away from a quality; of plants, to degenerate.^[2][1]

Related words

• ascīscō
• cōnscīscō
• perscīscō
• rescīscō
• scīscō
• sciō
• dēficiō

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