diffugio

Forms

diffugiō (present infinitive diffugere, perfect active diffūgī, supine diffūgitum); third (-iō variant) conjugation, impersonal in the passive^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin dis- + fugiō (“to flee”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan traces ⟨fugiō⟩ to Proto-Italic *fug-i- (“to flee”) and Proto-Indo-European *bʰug-i- (“to flee”), cognate with Ancient Greek φεύγω (pheúgō, “to flee”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL records it from Cicero on, and very often in Lucretius.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It means “to run off in different directions, scatter”, of people and animals: Lucretius has every kind of wild beast fleeing in all directions.^[2][5] Of things it is “to disperse, vanish”, as Lucretius' scent of ointment scattering into the air and Horace's “the snows have fled”.^[2]

Church Latin glosses it “flee”.^[6]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero.^[3][7]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius of scattering beasts and scents.^[2][5][7]
• 65–8 BC – Horace of melting snows.^[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To flee in different directions, scatter.^[2][5][1][6]
2. Of things, to disperse, vanish.^[2][1]

Word family

• diffugium

Related words

• fugiō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c 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 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de