discordo

Forms

discordō (present infinitive discordāre, perfect active discordāvī, supine discordātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin discors (“disagreeing”) + -ō, a verb made from the adjective.^[2][3] discors is a compound of dis- and cor (“heart”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *kord and Proto-Indo-European *ḱērd (“heart”).^[4][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan finds it first in Plautus,^[4] who in the Mercator uses it of goats that might quarrel.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Terence has it of people at odds with each other, and Livy of three quarrelling generals;^[2] Tacitus uses it of soldiers quarrelling and listening to the worst men's talk, and of a feud without end with the Cherusci.^[2] It is also used of animals and things, as Columella's kinds of fruit that spoil one another and Pliny the Younger's conflicting winds.^[2] From quarrelling it came to mean differing or being inconsistent, as Seneca says that a man whose acts disagree has no upright mind, and Horace contrasts the miser and the thrifty man.^[2] The TLL also records a deponent ⟨discordor⟩.^[3] Stelten glosses it “disagree”.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, of goats.^[2][4][6]
• 190–159 BC – Terence, of people quarrelling.^[2][7][6]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy, of generals at odds.^[2][6]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca, of inconsistent actions.^[2][6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To be at variance, quarrel, disagree.^[2][7][1][5]
2. To differ, be inconsistent or incongruous.^[2][7]

Word family

• discordābilis

Related words

• discors
• discordia
• concordō
• cor

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c 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 Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press