dispenso

Forms

dispēnsō (present infinitive dispēnsāre, perfect active dispēnsāvī, supine dispēnsātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin dis- + pēnsō (“to weigh out, pay”).^[2][1][3] pēnsō is a frequentative of pendō (“to hang; to weigh out, pay”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *pend-e/o- and Proto-Indo-European *(s)pend- (“to spin”); the sense went from hanging to weighing out and paying.^[1][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the OLD's earliest quotation, from Plautus, a character has used two hundred coins to be paid out.^[2][5] Lewis & Short take it of distributing pay among soldiers.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Its first sense, of money, is to pay out or distribute by weight, and so to apportion.^[6][2] It is then to manage or administer, especially a household: Cicero speaks of the man who managed his domestic affairs.^[2] More widely it is to order, arrange, regulate: Livy writes of arranging the year by inserting intercalary months.^[2] Caper reported that the oldest writers used a deponent ⟨dispēnsor⟩.^[3] Church Latin glosses it to distribute, dispense, regulate.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of paying out money.^[2][6][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of managing a household.^[2][6][5]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy of regulating the calendar.^[2][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To pay out, distribute, apportion; to dispense.^[2][6][1][7]
2. To manage, administer, control.^[2][6][1]
3. To order, arrange, regulate; to husband.^[2][1][7]

Word family

• dispēnsātiō
• dispēnsātor

Related words

• pēnsō
• pendō

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 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. ^ 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 c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson