ebibo

Forms

ēbibō (present infinitive ēbibere, perfect active ēbibī, supine ēbibitum); third conjugation^[1] Also exbibō,^[2] and in manuscripts ecb- or etb-.^[3]

Etymology

It is from Latin ex- + bibō (“to drink”).^[2][1][3] De Vaan traces bibō to Proto-Italic *pibe/o- and the reduplicated present Proto-Indo-European *pi-ph₃-e/o- (“to drink”), and dates the compound from Plautus.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has it first,^[4] as in the Amphitruo, of drinking up a jug of neat wine.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

It is to drink up or drain: Plautus has it beside eating, and Terence asks what they will eat and drink.^[5] Ovid has children draining the breasts, and in the Fasti a man who drinks as many cups as Nestor had years.^[2][5] Plautus also has drinking away a command with the wine, that is forgetting it.^[5] It is to spend on drink, in Plautus and Horace.^[2][5] Of things it is to absorb or dry up: Ovid has the sea absorbing foreign rivers, and Pliny the Elder wool soaking up pus and serpents sucking the blood of elephants.^[2][5] The Vulgate uses it of drinking up the spirit, in Job.^[5] Church Latin also uses it of drinking in with the mind.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus, of drinking up wine.^[2][7]
• 190–159 BC – Terence, of eating and drinking.^[5][7]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid, of the sea absorbing rivers.^[2][7]
• 390–406 AD – The Vulgate, of drinking up the spirit.^[5][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To drink up, drain.^[2][5][1]
2. To spend on drink, squander.^[2][5][1]
3. Of things, to absorb, swallow up; to dry up.^[2][5][1]
4. (Ecclesiastical Latin) To drink in mentally.^[6]

Related words

• bibō
• bibulus
• combibō
• perbibō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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. ^ a b 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 e f g h i j k l 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