dispectus

Forms

dispectus m (genitive dispectūs); fourth declension^[1][2]

Etymology

It is from Latin dispiciō (“to discern, consider”) + -tus.^[1][3][4] That verb is from dis- and speciō (“to look”),^[5] which de Vaan derives from Proto-Italic *spekje/o- and Proto-Indo-European *speḱ-ie/o- (“to look”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Seneca,^[7] who says in De ira that anger is unfit for discerning what is just and true.^[3][8]

Semantic evolution

Seneca uses it for the weighing up of duties, of what is to be done and of what is useful;^[3][4] Lewis & Short gloss it “regard, consideration, examination”.^[2] In Pliny the Elder, of Corinthian vessels used with no discernment of their elegance, the reading is doubtful, and Barbarus conjectured respectū there.^[3][8]

Timeline

• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it for discernment of what is just and of duties.^[3][7]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder may use it of Corinthian vessels.^[3][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. Practical discernment (of something), consideration.^[1][2][4]

Usage notes

dispectus is also the perfect participle of dispiciō.^[2][9][8] Georges and Köbler record a doubtful dīspectus “despised”, the same as dēspectus, in the Latin Anthology, where Riese reads dēspectīs.^[4][7] Two rarer words of the same spelling are not from dispiciō: dispectus “set here and there”, of boundary stones in the land surveyors, perhaps from dis- and pangō,^[3][4][8] and dispectus “broken off”, of a marriage in Apuleius, which Gaffiot and Conte derive from dis- and pacīscor.^[9][8]

References

1. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
5. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
8. ^ a b c d e Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
9. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.