Etymologically
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detorqueo

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [deːˈtɔr.kʷe.oː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [deˈtɔr.kʷe.o][1]

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]

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