desilio

Forms

dēsiliō (present infinitive dēsilīre, perfect active dēsiluī, supine dēsultum); fourth conjugation^[1] Plautus has the perfect desuluērunt.^[2][3] Besides dēsiluī the perfects dēsilīvī and dēsiliī occur from Columella on.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is from Latin dē- + saliō (“to jump”).^[2][1][4] De Vaan derives ⟨saliō⟩ from Proto-Italic *sal-je- and Proto-Indo-European *sh₂l-ie/o- (“to jump”), cognate with Ancient Greek ἅλλομαι (hállomai, “to jump”) and Old Irish saltraid (“to trample”), but calls the form of the root uncertain.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus,^[5] whose Rudens has it in the old perfect form desuluērunt, of leaping down.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

It is “to leap down”, and in particular to jump down from a horse or vehicle: Cicero has someone jump down from a carriage, and Caesar's cavalry leapt down to fight on foot.^[2] Poets use it of things falling or rushing down, as Horace's waters leaping from the rock and Propertius' thunderbolts from heaven.^[2]

Church Latin glosses it “leap”.^[6] From its supine came dēsultor, a circus rider who jumped from horse to horse, whose adjective is the source of English desultory (1580s).^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus has the perfect desuluērunt.^[2][8]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of jumping down from a carriage.^[2][8]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar of horsemen dismounting.^[2][8]
• 65–8 BC – Horace of water leaping down.^[2][8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To leap or jump down.^[2][3][1][6]
2. To jump down from a horse or vehicle, dismount.^[2][1]
3. Of water, lightning and the like, to rush or fall down.^[2]

Word family

• desulto
• dēsultor
• desultrix
• dēsultūra

Related words

• saliō
• English desultory

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 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 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 Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de