Etymologically
Log in

diripio

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 18 October 2026 at 23:00. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • Classical: [diːˈrɪ.pi.oː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [diˈriː.pi.o][1]

Forms

dīripiō (present infinitive dīripere, perfect active dīripuī, supine dīreptum); third (-iō variant) conjugation[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin dis- (“apart”) + rapiō (“to seize, snatch”).[2][3][1] De Vaan traces rapiō to Proto-Italic *rapi- (“to seize”) and Proto-Indo-European *h₁rp-i- (“to seize”), cognate with Ancient Greek ἐρέπτομαι (eréptomai, “to devour, snatch away”) and Albanian rjep (“to tear off, rob”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus, Mercator: Pentheum dīripuisse aiunt Bacchās, “they say the Bacchants tore Pentheus to pieces”.[2][5]

Semantic evolution

Its first sense is tearing to pieces, and tearing something away, as Ovid's Byblis tears the dress from her breast.[2] It is to snatch a share of something, as Virgil's Harpies snatch the food, and Seneca uses it of a lawyer whom the whole forum competes for.[2] Cato already uses it of seizing people's goods as plunder, and its most common sense is to plunder or loot people and places: Cicero accuses Verres of letting the farmers be robbed.[2]

Döderlein explains that vāstō is to lay waste from rage or policy, while populor and dīripere are to plunder for one's own use: populārī on a large scale, driving off herds and destroying crops, dīripere on a small scale, breaking into houses.[6] Church Latin glosses it “plunder, rob, despoil”.[7]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of the Bacchants tearing Pentheus apart.[2][8]
  • 234–149 BC – Cato of plundering goods.[2][8]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero of robbing farmers.[2][8]
  • 70–19 BC – Virgil of the Harpies snatching food.[2][8]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To tear to pieces; to tear away.[2][1]
  2. To snatch, scramble for; to compete for (a person).[2][1]
  3. To seize as plunder, steal.[2][1]
  4. To plunder, loot, pillage (a place or people).[2][1][7]

Word family

  • dīreptiō
  • dīreptor
  • direptus
  • indīreptus

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. ^ 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. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
  7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  8. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de