Etymologically
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direptor

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Forms

dīreptor m (genitive dīreptōris); third declension[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin dīripiō (“to tear apart, plunder”) + -tor,[2][3][4] the agent noun of that verb, which is a compound of dis- and rapiō (“to seize”).[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero has it first,[6] for a plunderer: he asks whether Antonius was the guardian of the city or its plunderer and harasser, and speaks of the plunderers of his own goods.[3][7]

Semantic evolution

Lewis and Short call it very rare.[7] Besides Cicero's plunderers, Tacitus uses it of men who seize people by force: a girl or a handsome youth who fell into their hands was torn apart by the seizers and drove them to destroy each other.[3] Ambrose lists thieves, plunderers and innkeepers together, and Gregory of Tours, who spells it dereptor, writes of a savage ravisher.[3] A feminine direptrix is found in Hesychius of Jerusalem.[3] It appears in the early medieval law codes of the Bavarians and the Visigoths.[6]

Timeline

  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it in the Philippics and against Catiline.[3][7][6]
  • 98–115 AD – Tacitus uses it of men who seize by force.[3][6]
  • c. 340–397 AD – Ambrose names plunderers among thieves.[3][6]
  • 538/539–594 AD – Gregory of Tours uses it of a ravisher.[3][6]
  • 7th century – The law of the Visigoths uses it.[6]
  • before 743 – The law of the Bavarians uses it.[6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A plunderer, pillager.[2][7]
  2. One who seizes by force, a ravisher.[3]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  5. ^ 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 c d e f g h Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  7. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press