discidium

Forms

discidium n (genitive discidiī or discidī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin discindō (“to tear apart”) + -ium.^[2][1][3] The verb is from dis- and scindō (“to split, tear”), which goes back to Proto-Italic *ski-n-d-e/o- and Proto-Indo-European *ski-n-d- (“to split, tear off”).^[3] Cognate with Sanskrit छिनत्ति (chinátti, “splits”) and Ancient Greek σχίζω (skhízō, “to split”).^[3] Stowasser derived it from dis- and cadō (“to fall”), like excidium, but the Thesaurus shows from its uses that it belongs with ⟨scindere⟩.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler date it from Plautus,^[3][5] whose soldier in the Miles gloriosus says that no quarrel arises from him over wine.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is a violent splitting apart, used often by Lucretius of bodies tossed by meetings and separations, and in Livy the breaking of treaties.^[2][6] Of people it is a forcible separation, as in Cicero's man torn from his brothers by the war, and the breaking of a marriage, divorce, or the estrangement of lovers, as in Terence.^[2] Cicero also speaks of the split between the tongue and the heart, between eloquence and wisdom.^[2] In Plautus it is discord or dissension.^[2] The Thesaurus notes that manuscripts often corrupt it into ⟨dissidium⟩, which Madvig showed is not a Latin word.^[4]

Church Latin glosses it “separation, disagreement, a tearing apart”,^[7] and in medieval texts it is a schism.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a quarrel.^[2][3][5]
• 190–159 BC – Terence of a divorce.^[2][5]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius of the splitting of bodies.^[2][6][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of separation by war.^[2][5]
• Middle Ages – Of a schism.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A tearing apart, violent division; the breaking of an agreement.^[2][6][1]
2. A separation of people; divorce; estrangement.^[2][6][1]
3. Discord, dissension.^[2][1]
4. (Medieval Latin) A schism.^[8]

Related words

• discindō
• scindō
• excidium

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 de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill