Etymologically
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desuper

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈdeː.sʊ.pɛr][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈdɛː.s̬u.per][1]

Forms

dēsuper (not comparable)[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin dē (“from”) + super (“above”).[2][1][3] De Vaan traces super to Proto-Italic *super(i) (“above”) and Proto-Indo-European *(h₁)uper(i) (“over, above”), comparing Umbrian super (“on top”) and Ancient Greek ὑπέρ (hupér, “over”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler and Lewis & Short first cite Caesar,[3][5] who has soldiers leaping onto the phalanxes and wounding the enemy from above.[2][5]

Semantic evolution

It means from above, from overhead;[5] Lewis & Short note that it is frequent in the historians and poets but not in Cicero.[5] Virgil has a dark grove that hangs over from above, and Suetonius has a boar attacked with javelins from above.[5] Without the idea of motion it is simply above, in the poets and later writers, as in Ovid and the Vulgate.[5][2] With the accusative it is a preposition, over, above, as in Grattius of a horse coming over the Ligurian Alps.[2] Church Latin glosses it from above.[6] In medieval Latin it can mean there, moreover, on top of, and on the higher side of.[7]

Timeline

  • c. 50 BC – Caesar of wounding from above.[2][5][3]
  • 70–19 BC – Virgil of a grove hanging over.[5][3]
  • 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid of togas spread above.[5][3]
  • c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius of a boar attacked from above.[5][3]
  • 390–406 AD – The Vulgate.[5][3]

Meanings

Adverb

  1. From above, from overhead.[2][5][1][6]
  2. Above, up above.[2][5]
  3. (Medieval Latin) There; moreover.[7]

Preposition

  1. (with accusative) Over, above.[2][7]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  4. ^ 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 Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  7. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill