disperdo

Forms

disperdō (present infinitive disperdere, perfect active disperdidī, supine disperditum); third conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin dis- + perdō (“to destroy, lose”).^[2][3][4] De Vaan lists perdō among the compounds in ⟨-dō⟩ that he assigns to the verb “to put”, Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-, while noting that such compounds could also belong to dō (“to give”), so the attribution is not always certain.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Plautus, where in the Casina a man urges another to drink, eat and squander his property: bibe, ēs, disperde rem.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

It means to destroy or ruin utterly, especially property and fortunes:^[2] Cicero uses it of squandering the possessions left by the ancestors,^[2][7] and Vatinius, in a letter among Cicero's correspondence, uses it of a man who had killed, carried off and ruined Roman citizens.^[2] Lucretius uses it of colour that is lost entirely, and Virgil of murdering a song on a squeaky pipe.^[8][6] The passive in place of disperīre is rare (Lucretius, the Vulgate, Salvian, Gregory of Tours).^[3]

In Christian Latin it means to destroy or cut off.^[9] Medieval documents use it of things lost or destroyed and, by confusion with dispergō, of people scattered or driven away.^[10]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of squandering one's property.^[2][11]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it of colour lost entirely.^[8][11]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of squandering inherited estates.^[2][11]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of murdering a song.^[8][11]
• 390–406 AD – The Vulgate uses its passive for “perish”.^[3][11]

Meanings

Verb

1. To destroy or ruin utterly.^[2][6]
2. To ruin, squander (property, fortunes); to ruin (persons).^[2][7]
3. (Ecclesiastical Latin) To destroy, cut off.^[9]
4. (Medieval Latin) To scatter, drive away.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
9. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
10. ^ a b Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
11. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de