detorqueo

Forms

dētorqueō (present infinitive dētorquēre, perfect active dētorsī, supine dētortum); second conjugation^[1] Cato has the perfect participle dētorsus;^[2][3] dētortus is usual from Cicero on.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin dē- + torqueō (“to twist”).^[2][3][1] De Vaan traces torqueō to Proto-Italic *torkʷ-eie- and the causative Proto-Indo-European *torkʷ-eie- (“to twist”), comparing Hittite tar(k)u- (“to dance”), Sanskrit तर्कय- (tarkaya-, “to consider”) and Tocharian B tärk- (“to turn”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cato has it first, in the Origines, of the Marrucini, whose name was twisted from that of the Marsi.^[2][3][5]

Semantic evolution

It is to turn or bend away, to deflect: Cicero uses it of a little bridge turned aside, and Virgil of a goddess turning her course to a king.^[2][6] It is also to turn a person's conduct for the worse, to twist something out of shape, as Cicero contrasts limbs well formed and twisted, and to distort a meaning, as in Cicero's De oratore.^[2] Augustine plays on it with torquēs, a twisted collar.^[3] In Church Latin it is glossed to twist.^[7]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato of a twisted name.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of distorted limbs and of a twisted argument.^[2][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of turning one's course.^[2][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To turn or bend aside, turn away, deflect; of paths, to deviate.^[2][6][1]
2. To turn behaviour aside, pervert; to divert an activity.^[2]
3. To twist out of shape, distort; to alter the form of words.^[2][1]
4. To distort the sense of, misrepresent.^[2][1]

Related words

• attorqueō
• circumtorqueō
• contorqueō
• distorqueō
• extorqueō
• intorqueō
• obtorqueō
• pertorqueō
• praetorqueō
• retorqueō

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