disiecto

Forms

disiectō (present infinitive disiectāre, perfect active disiectāvī, supine disiectātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

The OLD derives it from Latin dis- + iactō (“to throw about”).^[2] The TLL compares both disiciō (“to scatter”) and iactō,^[3] and Lewis & Short call it a frequentative of the former.^[4] The root verb iaciō (“to throw”) goes back to Proto-Italic *jak-i- (“to throw”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lucretius is the first to use it, of the sea tossing about benches and planks after a shipwreck.^[4][6]

Semantic evolution

In Lucretius it describes things hurled this way and that: wreckage on the sea, and the atoms scattered by the tides of matter.^[4][3] Statius also uses it,^[7] and in Ammianus Marcellinus it becomes a military term for scattering an enemy.^[6][4] Medieval writers used it for tossing the limbs about.^[8]

Timeline

• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it of the sea scattering wreckage and of scattered atoms.^[4][3][9]
• c. 45–96 AD – Statius uses the verb in the Thebaid.^[7][9]
• c. 390 AD – Ammianus Marcellinus uses it of scattering hostile peoples.^[4][6][9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To throw this way and that, to scatter, disperse.^[2][4]
2. (Late Latin, military) To scatter, rout (an enemy).^[6][4]

References

1. ^ a b c 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 Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
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 Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ a b Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
9. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de