dormito

Forms

dormītō (present infinitive dormītāre, perfect active dormītāvī, supine dormītātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin dormiō (“to sleep”) + -itō.^[2][3][4] De Vaan traces dormiō to Proto-Italic *dormje/o- and Proto-Indo-European *drm-i̯e- (“to sleep”).^[3] Cognate with Ancient Greek δαρθάνω (darthánō, “to fall asleep”).^[3] The grammarian Consentius notes that it looks like a frequentative but is used rather of beginning to sleep.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Plautus,^[3] in whom someone is told that he has been dozing in idleness till this time of day and should shake off his sloth.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It means to feel sleepy, to drowse or nod off;^[2][5] Cicero has it in his letters and in the De divinatione.^[5] From the first it is also used of letting one's energy or attention flag:^[2] Horace's quandoque bonus dormitat Homērus, “sometimes even good Homer nods”, is quoted by Seneca and Quintilian.^[2] Ovid applies it to a lamp about to go out, dormītante lucernā.^[5] In Church Latin it is to sleep or to be lazy.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, of dozing in idleness.^[2][3][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, of drowsiness.^[5][7]
• 65–8 BC – Horace, “good Homer nods”.^[2][7]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid, of a lamp going out.^[5][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To feel sleepy, to drowse, to begin to sleep.^[2][5][1]
2. To let one's energy or attention flag; to be sluggish, do nothing.^[2][1][6]
3. (poetic) Of a lamp, to be going out.^[5]

Word family

• dormītātiō
• dormītātor
• obdormītō

Related words

• dormiō

Usage notes

Quandoque bonus dormitat Homērus (Horace, Ars poetica 359) became proverbial for a lapse by a great writer.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de